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Speaker: Washington Fajardo, Architect and Urban Planner; Loeb Fellow 2019, Harvard Graduate School of Design
Moderator: Frances Hagopian, Jorge Paulo Lemann Senior Lecturer on Government at Harvard University and the Faculty Chair of the Brazil Studies Program
The lecture will detail the case of the recent urban transformation in the historic center of Rio de Janeiro, its achievements and fragilities, as a possible answer to the disappearing of Brazilian social fabric fostered by modern urban planning.
As president of the Rio World Heritage Institute and the Mayor’s Special Advisor for Urban Issues from 2009 to 2016, Washington Fajardo created policies and finance solutions to preserve heritage, regenerate buildings and places, and improve public services in Rio de Janeiro. His innovative initiatives revived cultural heritage in the city’s waterfront renewal and supported private owners to rehabilitate historic buildings.
Now, as he pursues architectural design and planning activities in his studio DBR, he is developing a new “urban agency,” a mix of “do-tank” and investigation and problem solving lab at the intersection of academia, city government, and community. Fajardo created the Carioca Design Center and the African Heritage Historical and Archaeological Trail. He has won awards for Ver-O-Peso urban renewal in Belém in the Amazon Region, Pavuna Carioca Arena, and the New Imperator, an old movie theater converted to a multipurpose cultural center. He collaborates in O Globo and El País Brazil newspaper. Author of “Urban Transformations” and “Avenues of Rio”.