The modernist city from the coastline, between images and prose

The webinar analyzes urban production in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, at the beginning of the 20th century through literature and photography. The goal is to explore how the city was experienced and perceived, and how these representations and forms can shed light on its contemporary development. These insights take us on a journey through historical archives, collections, and various written and visual sources that document the cultural, architectural, spatial, economic, and literary dynamics of the city The modernist urban planning initiatives implemented in the city between 1900 and 1920 manifest in the construction of buildings and monuments in public spaces, as well as in the cultural realm, resulting from the interplay between photography and literature. The diverse sources of city records evoke the voices of a past that exists in the present, indicating an unyielding movement of time's own force, enduring and resolute, as if they foretell not just what has already transpired, but what lies ahead—a forward-looking, futuristic vision of the city.