This article presents different readings of the works by Gilberto Freyre from the 1930s to the present day. It shows the importance of his experiences as a traveler for the adoption of an endogenous and exogenous perspective when observing cities. The impact felt upon his return to Pernambuco in the 1920s was furthered by his observation of the process of urbanization which threatened to disfigure the old quarters of the city of Recife. His patrimonialist vision solidified in the organization of Livro do Nordeste (1925), celebrating the centennial of the Diário de Pernambuco, in which Manuel Bandeira published "Evocation of Recife". Freyre and Bandeira, close friends and fellow journeymen, take turns writing guides and poems about cities. At last, the article returns to the concepts of "regionalist modernism" or "modernist provincialization" in order to identify within the oeuvre of Gilberto Freyre an "other" modernism, distinct from those which evolved from modernism in the state of São Paulo.
invention of the Northeast; travels in Gilberto Freyre; city guides; regionalismo; an "other" modernism