{"id":381142,"date":"2021-02-15T15:32:57","date_gmt":"2021-02-15T18:32:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/?p=381142"},"modified":"2021-02-15T15:32:57","modified_gmt":"2021-02-15T18:32:57","slug":"calculus-of-a-poet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/calculus-of-a-poet\/","title":{"rendered":"Calculus of a poet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00c9verton Barbosa Correia, a professor of literature at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), resolved to study the literary work of Recife’s Joaquim Moreira Cardozo (1897\u20131978) in such depth that he won the praises of poet Jo\u00e3o Cabral de Melo Neto (1920\u20131999), also from Recife. Cardozo has, strictly speaking, two lines of work, one as a poet and the other as an engineer. He was responsible for the structural calculations that keep the buildings designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer (1907\u20132012) standing, such as the Cathedral and the National Congress in Bras\u00edlia, which turned 60 in April 2020.<\/p>\n

In 1930, Cardozo graduated in civil engineering from the Pernambuco School of Engineering, which is now integrated with the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE) The young engineer demonstrated an ability to make structural calculations for avant-garde works while he was working in the Architecture and Construction Directorate (DAC), which managed the state’s projects. Encouraged by his supervisor, architect Luiz Nunes (1909\u20131937), he designed the Alberto Torres Rural School in 1936, using horizontal arches and beams to support the access ramps, which were themselves an expression of modern architecture.<\/p>\n

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Correio da Manh\u00e3 \/ National Archives<\/span><\/a> The National Congress was one of Cardozo’s (photo<\/em>) primary worksCorreio da Manh\u00e3 \/ National Archives<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cCardozo, being a poet, art critic, and engineer, adhered to the ideals of modern architecture,\u201d says architect Leonardo Inojosa, a professor at the University of Bras\u00edlia (UnB). His doctoral thesis, completed in 2019, argued that Cardoso’s innovative structural solutions left their mark on modern Brazilian architecture from the 1930s to the 1980s.<\/p>\n

In 1940, after giving a speech to the class graduating from the School of Engineering that included comments which displeased the state government, Cardozo was fired from DAC and made the move to Rio de Janeiro, then Brazil\u2019s capitol. At the National Historical and Artistic Heritage Service (SPHAN), he met Niemeyer, and devised the structural design for the architect’s Conjunto da Pampulha, in Belo Horizonte, which was inaugurated in 1943. This work marked the beginning of a partnership that was to last 30 years.<\/p>\n

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Technical Collection of the Chamber of Deputies<\/span><\/a> The National Congress (design<\/em>)Technical Collection of the Chamber of Deputies<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Another of their collaborations in Pampulha was the Church of S\u00e3o Francisco de Assis. \u201cThe project was innovative from an architectural point of view, due to the small church’s bold, free-form approach, and structurally, due to its reinforced concrete construction, a technique that was still relatively underused in Brazil,\u201d observes architect Alexandre Martins, from Alc\u00e2ntara Machado Integrated Schools of University Center. The experience acquired in Minas laid the foundations for their joint work in Bras\u00edlia, which included the palaces of the Federal Supreme Court, the official presidential residence, and Itamaraty, home of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.<\/p>\n

Poet friends<\/strong>
\n\u201cHis poetry had the same technical rigor as his engineering works, with a remarkable concern for the sound and combination of words,\u201d says Correia. \u201cFew modern Brazilian poets were so good at the technique of constructing poems as Cardozo.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Bucar, L. Senatus. 2010 <\/span><\/a> The National Congress (aerial view<\/em>)Bucar, L. Senatus. 2010 <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

From 1910 to 1913, as a student at Gin\u00e1sio Pernambucano High School, Cardozo helped found the newspaper O Arrabalde<\/em> (The Outskirts), in which he published his first short story, Astronomia alegre<\/em>. He was a cartoonist at the newspaper Di\u00e1rio de Pernambuco <\/em>and, in the 1920s, was director of the intellectual culture magazine Revista do Norte<\/em>, in which he published his first poems. In Rio, he socialized with Manuel Bandeira (1886\u20131968) and Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902\u20131987). \u201cHe was not concerned with organizing his poems in books. He only published under pressure from his writer friends,\u201d comments Correia. Cardozo released his first book, Poemas<\/em>, in 1947, at the age of 50. His second, Signo estrelado<\/em> (Star Sign), came out in 1960, with his portrait drawn in ink by Emiliano Di Cavalcanti (1897\u20131976).<\/p>\n

His literary production increased after his retirement, which was marked by tragedy. On February 4, 1971, construction at the Gameleira Exhibition Pavilion, in Belo Horizonte, collapsed and close to 70 workers. Under legal prosecution, he proved that there had been no miscalculation and that the cause of the accident had been carelessness during the removal of structural shoring.<\/p>\n

Cardozo published seven works of poetry and six plays. \u201cThe period between 1970 and 1975 was his most productive, with works that deal with both erudite and popular themes, such as bumba-meu-boi<\/em> [a traditional folklore festival play],\u201d says Correia, who was also one of the organizers of a special edition of Gl\u00e1uks<\/em> magazine<\/a> in February 2020 celebrating Cardozo’s literary work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joaquim Cardozo, from Recife, was responsible for the calculations that made Oscar Niemeyer’s innovative Bras\u00edlia architecture possible ","protected":false},"author":684,"featured_media":381416,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[152],"tags":[203,220,245,265],"coauthors":[2721],"class_list":["post-381142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-retrospect","tag-architecture","tag-communication","tag-literature","tag-urbanism"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/684"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381142"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":381743,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381142\/revisions\/381743"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381142"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=381142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}