235 Avenido Sete de Setembro
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)Option Studio [‘23]
This is 235 Avenido Sete de Septembre
It has had a specific identity for as long as Manaus has existed and the new identity that I am placing on the table is that 235 Avenido Sete de Septembre would become a series of avenues designated to public leisure and enjoyment. Makerspaces, a public pool, restaurants and a garden that belongs to the citizens of Manaus.
Now there are two things at stake here.
First is this identity that it has had for over a hundred years and the next is the avenue on which it sits, Avenido Sete de Septembre. I will start with this identity.
Before I start, there is a specificity to the Igarape as a feature of the city, in the way that it develops a culture around itself, a culture of water. "Everyone went with the sole purpose of seeking fun and rest" this image of an Igarape at the edge of Manaus is one I'd like you to hold in your minds eye. A culture of water that I am hoping to start a conversation about, with this project.
The way I read Manaus even before going there was understanding first, how it was very much designed, abstracted and geometricised through the grid. and with the grid, there is bound to be a periphery as water becomes the limiing factor in how the standard grid can expand.
In the case of Manaus, it is the Educandos Igarape. And sat on that edge, is the Manaus public jail, Sai Raimundo Vidal Pessoa, a panopticon and one of the more recognisable tools of modernism, one that we're undoubtedly familiar with. A centripetal arrangement of space, all directed towards a central point for sustained surveillance. One of the questions I am asking then is Can the form of the panopticon be a method of centrifugal social organisation?
I've had specific attitudes when thinking of this question and first and foremost has been undermining the ground, undermining what appears to be an impenetrable fortress to the rest of the city. It has been important to demistify the buildup of material, in the way that I am representing it, more intentionally as inbetween a solid and liquid, not quite solid ground.
