Engenheiros consultores: profissionais do desenvolvimento territorial e urbano ”“ 1960-1970

Abstract

This paper reflects upon the historicity of a character often overlooked in the gallery of studies pertaining to topics of territorial and urban development: the consulting engineer. The origins of consulting engineering in fact merge with Brazil’s economic boom during the first decades of the twentieth century, a period which marked the early stages of industrialization and urbanization in this country. Moreover, this period is linked to the very assertion of engineering as a professional field, when engineers gradually moved from manufacturing activities at construction sites to design and consulting offices, claiming their technical and scientific knowledge of the space production process, as well as their managerial capacity in the task of contributing to national development. Within the field of specialities they acted in, these professionals acquired control of large engineering companies in the consulting sector which, in turn, began to operate in various areas of expertise, especially between 1960 and 1970 ”“ from designing hydroelectric plants, roads, and ports to developing local master plans, stimulated by high government investments set on constructing the infrastructure of a country then undergoing a major urban expansion process.