PEDREGULHO SOCIAL HOUSING EXPERIMENT, RIO DE JANEIRO BUILT IN 1947-52 BY AFFONSO EDUARDO REIDY

Mr. Hamilton, president of the Pedregulho housing association


original plan for Pedregulho 1946


Le Corbusier's urban plans for Rio de Janeiro, 1929 with highway on top of curved housing buildings

Le Corbusier's urban plans for Rio de Janeiro, 1929 with highway on top of curved housing buildings


PEDREGULHO SOCIAL HOUSING EXPERIMENT, RIO DE JANEIRO BUILT IN 1947-52 BY AFFONSO EDUARDO REIDY
The Prefeito Mendes de Moraes Residential Complex, known as Pedregulho, was designed by the architect Affonso Eduardo Reidy (1909-1964) was built from 1947 and finished in 1952, to house government employees of the then capital of Brazil. Located in the Rio de Janeiro suburb of São Cristóvão, the 260-meter-long serpentine building has 272 housing units of different sizes, 68 per floor. Two additional apartment buildings, both 80 meters long are below, other of the planned buildings were never built. The serpentine form was probably inspired by Le Corbusier's 1929 unbuilt plan for Rio de Janeiro. The Pedregulho development covers an area of 50,000 m2, comprising the apartment blocks, an elementary school, a gymnasium, a swimming pool with dressing rooms, a health center (now abandoned), playgrounds, and a day care center.

According to Cabinet magazine "Pedregulho was also to represent to the outside world the direction of current Brazilian social reform. Therefore, families who were to represent this new society had to be checked for medical diseases before moving in. A criterion for these hand-picked tenants was their willingness to uphold the pure, white aesthetic of the architecture. Additionally, they had to agree to frequent inspections by the authorities. Employees from the Popular Housing Department had the power to periodically access the apartments and request that tenants abide by the regulations. The inhabitants had to remain clean. Of special importance was a communal laundry room with washing machines. To encourage its use, each tenant was given 2 kg of detergent annually as a gift from the city. The laundry room and representative tenants were part of the regular tour given to VIPs... Tenants could be evicted for lying to the authorities and social assistants regularly verified information provided by the tenants."

Today in a state of disrepair and with a bad reputation as a 'hot' spot within the city, the tenants have organized themselves to make some repairs in the building.

There is also an artist residency promoting artist's projects within the building
http://pedregulhoresidenciaartistica.wordpress.com/