Part I: Space and Time of Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

This chapter establishes the “temporal landscape” of Rio; that is, how space and time dynamically interact in this city. The experience of the “present” in Rio de Janeiro has been consistently defined by strong pushes towards the future and deep nostalgic pulls to the past, leading it to feel somehow perpetually “incomplete” or “in progress.” This interaction creates a temporal landscape that is characterized by absence. In that context, I contend that a glorious and particularly attractive, yet complex, decadence has been a present feature of the city since the revolution in 1889. In this chapter, I define the key concepts behind my thesis—saudades, decadence, landscape, progress—and the key historical moments from 1889 to 2016, in an initial “character study” of the city.