ABSTRACT
In the mid-1950’s, the construction of a monument in Curitiba, Paraná, led the local elite to an impasse: how to be modern, in postwar Brazil, without giving up being white? Conceived as part of the centenary commemorations of the state of Paraná, the monument should dominate the Civic Center plaza - an administrative complex planned to symbolize the sudden transformation of Paraná into one of the richer states in the federation. However, the 21 stone giants that would comprise the monument ended up reduced to only one, the Naked Man, made by sculptors Erbo Stenzel and Humberto Cozzo. In this article, I analyze the meanings associated with the adaptation, construction and repercussion of the Naked Man, including the conflicts between local agents and modernist professionals that worked in the Brazilian capital, Rio de Janeiro. I trace the efforts of an elite group focused in updating their region according to the standards set by a modern movement developed in the centers of the nation’s cultural life. Facing resistance from a reactionary local elite group, the modern paranaenses were able to secure significant architectural projects, but only to retreat when they figured that being modern and Brazilian, in the postwar years, meant becoming less white.
KEY-WORDS:
Whiteness; Regionalism; Modernism; Architecture; Curitiba/Paraná; Postwar
