Brazil's Revolution in Commerce by James P. Woodard

Author:James P. Woodard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press

Comfort Zones

By the time of Periscinoto’s intervention, many of the most important Brasil Grande slogans had fallen into disuse. As growth rates fell, “At the Pace of Brasil Grande” no longer hit the right notes; indeed, in changed circumstances it had the capacity to embarrass the regime. But stalwarts did not give up on policies supporting the country’s consumer capitalism. In 1977 Minister of Planning Reis Veloso addressed the First Brazilian Marketing and Commercialization Congress, emphasizing the importance of strong, well-structured enterprises. “We support the idea that modern [commercial] mechanisms become increasingly developed,” he said, adding that such development was already underway, evidenced by the supermarkets long-supported by government and by “shopping-centers.” By that point, Brazil’s first enclosed shopping malls had been in business for just over a decade, but the words “shopping center” had been applied to other structures beginning in the 1950s. In doing so, stakeholders in commercial arcades and mixed-use complexes sought to portray these structures as embodying modern convenience and comfort, a prelude to the creation of a “shopping-center culture” in the 1960s and after.123

Commercial arcades (galerias comerciais) were an increasingly important part of southeastern cityscapes in the 1950s. By 1963, the claim that there was “arcade fever in São Paulo” was no exaggeration, and much the same could have been said of Rio. In São Paulo’s “new” downtown, in Rio’s city center, and in once-outlying neighborhoods of both cities, commercial arcades were laid out in new buildings and in older ones refurbished to create storefronted retail space where none existed. Curved façades and careful lighting seduced pedestrians, while ramps and escalators funneled crowds to spaces below and above. Arcades linking major thoroughfares were designed to erase the distinction between outside and inside, public and private, while drawing foot traffic past artfully designed shopwindows. Some marketing experts sniffed that they were not true shopping centers, but builders and their backers did handsomely, as shopspaces in prime locations sold off quickly, and while the idea of the commercial arcade harked back to European precedent, North American influence upon their design and promotion was plain. According to its developers, São Paulo’s Centro Comercial Grandes Galerias was the result of research on “the most modern ‘Shopping Centers’ built in the entire world”; its four hundred units sold out in eight hours. The most successful arcades featured leisure as well as commercial activities: cinemas, cafés, restaurants. Along with its “most beautiful air-conditioned restaurant,” Rio’s Galeria Menescal promised “the greatest facilities for shopping, comfortably and without wasting time.”124

Some of the property owners, real-estate developers, architects, and builders associated with the commercial-arcade craze were also involved in the design, building, and promotion of mixed-use structures, most often called conjuntos (“complexes”). These buildings featured combinations of the retailing typical of galerias with office space and/or residential condominiums, usually complemented by leisure facilities and parking. São Paulo’s Conjunto Nacional, steps from the chic shopping district of Rua Augusta, included stores, eateries, office space, and a cinema, with the added amenity of elevator music. PN’s editors dubbed it a “Sales-Promotion Center”; other authorities called it a “shopping center.

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