A PRAÇA MARECHAL FLORIANO PEIXOTO EM PONTA GROSSA – PARANÁ:O PROCESSO DE URBANIZAÇÃO E A CONSTITUIÇÃO DE UM LUGAR DE MEMÓRIA

Abstract

The research work is based on the assumption that the Marechal Floriano Peixoto Square constitutes a place of memory for the city of Ponta Grossa, in the state of Paraná. Through a qualitative, documentary, exploratory research, we sought to understand how the formation of this urban space occurred, especially in the first three decades of the twentieth century, a time that essential symbologies crystallized making possible to perceive this square within the perspective of the historian French author Pierre Nora regarding the constitution of a place of memory. The consolidation of these symbologies was accompanied by the solidification of a process of urbanization influenced by world order factors due to the process of industrialization, the strengthening of the capitalist system and the process of modernization of the Brazilian cities, with special emphasis on the republican context, resulting in differentiated social practices and urban developments such as the creation of squares, street paving, trading development, industries installation and railways construction. The sources used are part of the collections of the Ponta Grossa House of Memories and the Campos Gerais Museum of the Ponta Grossa State University, constituting itself in photographs, newspapers, municipal posture codes from the years of 1891 and 1914, and commemorative albums from Paraná from 1923 and 1927. The study revealed that it was precisely in the first three decades of the twentieth century that the Square began to add material, symbolic and functional elements that point to an official and institutionalized history. It was also possible to verify, in later periods, the construction of other monuments, as well as the implementation of other elements that have re-appropriated the symbology already crystallized in this space, which makes it possible to show, through the sources listed, that the Square, along its process of urbanization, brings with it crystallization marks of memory that can be perceived by the records of a past lived, therefore the Marechal Floriano Peixoto Square is perceived as a place of memory for the city of Ponta Grossa.