Ouro Preto: from the transforming gestures of the "colonial" to the construction of the "modern antique"

Abstract

Urban and architectural changes experienced by XIXth-century cities allowed different sorts of co­habitation with the past and even the production of a "historic heritage". Different variables and their specific interplay are considered, such as, on the one hand, the cosmopolitan character of urban interventions and betterment projects, and, on the other hand, the introduction of new morphological, technico-constructive appliances or the transfer of models ( both acting within a context of local material, political and cultural conditions. Ouro Preto, the mythical city is taken as a case study for understanding how efforts towards the construction of a "historical monument" artificially homogenized the urban reality to the disavantage of its historicity and actual transformations.