O Urbanismo, a Medicina e a Biologia nas palavras e imagens da cidade

• Main Authors: Philip Gunn, Telma de Barros Correia
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade de São Paulo (USP) 2001-12-01
• Series: Pós: Revista do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Arquitetura e Urbanismo da FAUUSP
• Online Access: http://revistas.usp.br/posfau/article/view/137416

Urbanism, which emerged as a specific area of knowledge during the 19,h century and which was institutionalised in the early 20th century, has frequently approached biology in order to define its means of analysis and techniques of intervention. Analogies based on living beings, parts of the body, illnesses and anomalies have often been used in representations of the city. In the vocabulary of urbanism and in discussions on the city biological terminology has infiltrated both analytical and projectural technique especially in the denomination of parts of cities and their components. The text to follow, discusses this correspondence between the city and the body and investigates the metaphors and the analogies drawn between urban agglomerations and living organisms in the terminology of biology and medicine as used to designate the city and some places within it. The paper uses the language of differing authors - urban engineers, architects, doctors etc. - both in Brazil and in other countries throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, to illustrate the discussion. The central theme in this discussion is the persistence and force of the image of the human body as a model for urban order and disorder and as a means of understanding city form