By ROBERTO ANDERSON MAGALHÃES*
The concession of the park is wrong in that it aims at excessive profits and, to that end, requires the construction of an excessive area over the park. Its bucolic character would be replaced by a shopping mall environment on the waterfront.
In 1930, Alfred Agache's urban plan for the city of Rio de Janeiro was published. Among his proposals, which included a subway, Alfred Agache designed a beautiful garden for the Calabouço area. It would have a canal-shaped water mirror, flanked by landscaped flowerbeds, arbors with flowering vines and avenues of palm trees. The plan was not implemented in its entirety, but the garden for the Calabouço influenced the design of the Jardim de Alah, built on the banks of the canal that connects Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas to the sea, between Ipanema and Leblon.
With an Art Deco aesthetic, the Jardim de Alah received its suggestive name due to an American film that was a hit when it was inaugurated in 1938. It is said that gondolas allowed visitors to stroll along the canal. The plasticity of the Jardim de Alah led to its being listed by the City Council in 2001.
However, the park was surrounded by the verticalization of neighboring neighborhoods, and the peace of visitors was affected by the insecurity in the city. Much worse than that was the neglect of the municipal authorities with its conservation, which extended to other public spaces in the city. Even a subway construction site was installed in the garden. After the construction site was cleared, a devastated area remained, where there were marks of the toilets built for the workers.
It is not known whether the Rio de Janeiro City Hall took action against the subway company, but it is known that it did not resume maintenance of the park. It opted to hold a bidding process for the concession of the space for thirty-five years. The winner was the Rio+Verde consortium, which proposed a project that has been the target of many objections. Without going into the merits of the concession, which would be unnecessary if the City Hall took over the care of the park, it is worth discussing the elements of the project that have provoked so much rejection on the part of residents and visitors to Jardim de Alah.
The concession of the Catacumba Park can be used as a comparison. In a minimalist intervention, a trail was marked out and structures for tree climbing, climbing and a zip line were installed. The winning consortium's proposal for the Jardim de Alah radically changes its appearance, contradicting the municipal heritage listing.
On the side closest to Ipanema, the project proposes the construction of a slab above ground, a few meters from the water, covering approximately four blocks, between Barão da Torre Street and Epitácio Pessoa Avenue. Underneath this slab there would be shops, restaurants, a market and parking. In order to mitigate this intervention, the upper part of this slab would be covered with vegetation and some trees.
But no vegetation on the slab would change the fact that it would be a strong waterproofing element for the park's soil. Furthermore, to build this immense slab, it would be necessary to remove or relocate trees, which were counted at 130 individuals of varying sizes.
The concession of the park is wrong in that it aims at excessive profits and, to achieve this, requires the construction of an excessive area over the park. Its bucolic character would be replaced by a shopping mall environment on the water's edge. And the loss of soil permeability, when the consequences are known, would be absurd.
The Municipal Department of the Environment could have been more careful in its assessment of the proposed project, but it is no longer responsible for environmental licensing. The mayor, who could hear the public outcry against the current project for Jardim de Alah, shows no signs of withdrawing his support for what is being proposed. The interested parties, who are not few, can only hope that the courts will force Rio+Verde to review its problematic project.
*Roberto Anderson Magalhães is an architect and professor at PUC-Rio.
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