O corpo técnico das CAPs e IAPs e a inserção de inovações na moradia urbana (Nordeste, décadas de 1940-1960)

Abstract

Several professionals associated with retirement and pension funds and institutes (CAPs/IAPs) were committed to developing and applying spatial, plastic-formal, and technological solutions to urban habitation in Brazil from the 1930s to the 1960s. The trajectory and performance of a considerable part of this technical group are as yet little known, particularly in northeastern Brazil. This paper seeks to contribute to the discussion about their professional introduction to the institutional scenario and their innovations in habitation, focusing on architects and, above all, engineers who worked in agencies in Salvador, Recife, São Luís, Teresina, Fortaleza, João Pessoa, and especially Natal from 1940 to 1960. The aim is to broaden analyzes regarding these agents, towards consolidating modern architecture in Brazil and providing elements to acknowledge and discuss the patrimonial value of this production. Based on data from financing processes filed at regional INSS offices, CREA records, magazines, and the legislation of the time, as well as on published studies and iconographic material regarding the individuals in question, an initial survey identified over 200 names. They were involved in designing, evaluating, and auditing projects and works, a part of which translate aspects from modern ideas into built form. Having worked mostly at Recife and Salvador offices, these professionals include modernist icons of national renown, as well as individuals little or ”“ possibly ”“ never mentioned before by historiography. It is believed that their circulation (and that of their ideas) between states and regions was favored by the organizational structure of CAPs/IAPs and by the real estate stocks they operated. This paper highlights, therefore, the relevant contribution of these technical workers in consolidating the repertoire of modernist architecture in the Northeast and reconstructs their trajectories to continue the research underlying this work