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Constructing a sustainable ‘tomorrow’: iconic architecture and progressive neoliberal place-making in Rio de Janeiro’s ‘Little Africa’

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Abstract

Rio de Janeiro’s long-marginalised, majority Afro-descendant old port area, home to the remains of the Americas’ largest slave disembarkation wharf and Brazil’s first favela, has been subjected to recurring elite-led ‘revitalisation’ projects. A contemporary plan, Porto Maravilha (Marvelous Port), seeks to address the region’s decline through a culture-led, public-private development scheme that refashions this space as a tourist and residential hub. Based on participant-observation, interviews with protagonists, and discursive analysis of official texts, this article analyses the most spectacular addition to Rio’s previously derelict waterfront—the grandiosely titled Museu do Amanhã (Museum of Tomorrow)—to demonstrate how efforts to neoliberalise space, within this postcolonial and settler-colonial urban context and beyond, are increasingly given a progressive twist. Drawing from Leslie Sklair’s pathbreaking analysis of the political economy of architectural ‘iconicity’, I interrogate the socio-spatial dimensions of the Museum as a starchitect-designed and utopian site that promotes sustainability and community empowerment, but simultaneously cultivates a market-friendly ethos. Invoking Nancy Fraser, I argue that the Museum represents an emblematic case of ‘progressive neoliberal place-making.’ Through analysing global city-making processes in Rio’s ‘Little Africa’, this article addresses longstanding lacunae in IPE and IR related to the centrality of race and colonialism in global capitalism.

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Notes

  1. This evokes Rio’s well-known nickname of the Cidade Maravilhosa (‘Marvelous City’).

  2. See: http://www.rio.rj.gov.br/web/guest/exibeconteudo?id=894708 (accessed 1 July 2020).

  3. See: https://museudoamanha.org.br/en/main-exhibition (accessed 5 January 2023).

  4. On the North-South divide and meaning of the term ‘Global South’, see Funk (2015).

  5. On interpretive approaches in/and political science, see Funk (2019).

  6. The acronym refers to the Companhia de Desenvolvimento Urbano da Região do Porto do Rio de Janeiro (Urban Development Company of the Port Region of Rio de Janeiro).

  7. For important conceptualisations of quilombos by Black Brazilian thinkers, see Bispo dos Santos (2015) and Nascimento (2021).

  8. Carioca is the common Portuguese demonym for Rio’s residents.

  9. Per this interpretation, flows of capital into ever-riskier urban projects result from a ‘crisis’ of overaccumulation, which in turn generates further potential economic instability.

  10. See: https://www.kearney.com/global-cities/2022 (accessed 10 January 2023).

  11. Such formulations are more common in Brazil. See, for example, the aforementioned framework of ‘dependent urbanisation’, according to which urban space is shaped by the particularities of capitalist dynamics and elite interests within Brazil’s ‘peripheral’ (or ‘semi-peripheral’) economy (Tonin 2022). Notably, class analysis—in relation to urban space or more generally—has long been marginalised in U.S. political science and related disciplines (Funk and Sclofsky 2021; Sclofsky and Funk 2018).

  12. See: http://www.fazendaculinaria.com.br/programa-cozinheiros-do-amanha/ (accessed 4 January 2021).

  13. A delineation of Porto Maravilha’s famously ‘complex’ public-private economic model is beyond the scope of this article. In brief, a special ‘urban operation’ zone was established with a differentiated legal framework. Therein, a ‘semi-public’ federal fund would utilise the resources acquired through the sale of development titles to finance CDURP and pay private operators to provide basic services (Mosciaro and Pereira 2019).

  14. See: https://museudoamanha.org.br/en/about-the-museum (accessed 30 August 2019).

  15. See: https://museudoamanha.org.br/sites/default/files/Screenplay_Cosmic-Portal.pdf (accessed 30 August 2019).

  16. See: https://museudoamanha.org.br/en/cosmos (accessed 30 August 2019).

  17. This invokes the Black Brazilian feminist Lélia Gonzalez’s influential theorisation of Amefricanidade (Amefricanity) (Cardoso 2014).

  18. See: https://museudoamanha.org.br/en/main-exhibition (accessed 30 August 2019).

  19. See: https://www.aam-us.org/2016/11/03/a-futuryst-look-at-the-museum-of-tomorrow/ (accessed 1 July 2020).

  20. The Museum—purposefully—features no on-site parking.

  21. See: https://www.aam-us.org/2016/11/03/a-futuryst-look-at-the-museum-of-tomorrow/ (accessed 1 July 2020).

  22. See: https://museudoamanha.org.br/pt-br/conheca-o-comite-cientifico-e-de-saberes-do-museu-do-amanha (accessed 14 December 2023).

  23. Notably, however, Paes’ total count was less than the record-setting number of abstentions.

  24. See: https://prefeitura.rio/noticias/mais-um-novo-empreendimento-residencial-e-lancado-no-porto-maravilha/ (accessed 30 June 2023).

  25. See: https://cury.net/busca?state=RJ&regions=65&bedrooms= (accessed 2 July 2023).

  26. See: https://cury.net/imovel/RJ/centro/baia (accessed 1 January 2024).

  27. See: https://cury.net/regiao/RJ/centro (accessed 1 January 2024).

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Interviews

  • Architect and academic specialist in urban development, Rio de Janeiro, 5 July 2018.

  • CDURP manager, Rio de Janeiro, 28 June 2018.

  • Cultural project developer and manager, Rio de Janeiro, 3 July 2019.

  • Tour operator and historian, Rio de Janeiro, 16 July 2018.

  • Urbanist and researcher, Rio de Janeiro, 29 June 2018.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the American Political Science Association and Columbia University’s Institute of Latin American Studies. I would like to thank the editors, as well as the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful feedback. I would also like to extend my appreciation to my interviewees, along with Rio-based academic interlocutors including João Carlos Carvalhaes Monteiro, Leopoldo Guilherme Pio, and Guilherme Leite Gonçalves, and the audiences at (and organizers of) campus talks and conference presentations during which I presented earlier versions of this work.

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  1. The Committee on Global Thought, Department of Political Science, & Institute of Latin American Studies, Columbia University, New York, USA

    Kevin Funk

  2. 91 Claremont Avenue, Room 511, New York, NY, 10027, USA

    Kevin Funk

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Funk, K. Constructing a sustainable ‘tomorrow’: iconic architecture and progressive neoliberal place-making in Rio de Janeiro’s ‘Little Africa’. J Int Relat Dev 27, 170–197 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41268-024-00327-4

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