RISE AND DECAY OF THE RAILWAY HERITAGE

THE SIGNS OF VITALITY OF BAURU'S HISTORICAL CENTER

Abstract

The installation of the railway structures of the Sorocabana, Paulista and Noroeste do Brasil companies and the successive obsolescence of this transport system, replaced by road transport, were processes that symbolized both the rise and the urban decay of the historic center of Bauru. The abandonment of railway activities determined the transformation of the living structure of the railways into a huge underutilized organism, resting on the urban fabric, the focus of gradual environmental degradation. Bearer of immense urban landscape potential, due to its historical, social, economic and cultural territorial value, it currently carries the status of Railway Heritage. This present research, in addition to studying these events, aims to produce a chronological scale of events, from the initial installation to the almost complete abandonment of these structures, as well as the reflections of these contradictory movements on the great development and the successive retraction of the historic center of the city. It is supported, in this sense, in the consultation of diverse materials and means of information as a complement to the bibliographic survey, such as: master's and doctoral dissertations, conference and magazine annals, academic articles, photographic documents, digital media, field research, Railway Museum and consultation of the library collection of the Centro Universitário do Sagrado Coração. Finally, the work aims to propose planning and landscaping alternatives for these spaces, especially those located around the historic center; urban design measures and attitudes that contemplate the revitalization of the area and of the railway heritage itself, with the aim of preserving the social, cultural and historiographic importance of these structures as objects of privileged interest and signs of the requalification of the urban space.