Hospital Universitário João de Barros Barreto: a significação cultural da arquitetura hospitalar moderna em Belém

Abstract

The cultural significance points to a valuation given by man, which encompasses several aspects, such as historical, social, aesthetic, architectural and even spiritual, thus making the human being the creative center of all significations. As an example of the historical building that houses the current João de Barros Barreto Hospital, we try to gather the multiple functional dimensions and the meanings connected to the architecture in order to characterize it as a form of assistance patrimony. The six-story monoblock building was built between 1938 and 1959, showing the influence of modern architecture precepts in the way of building public buildings in Brazil, translated mainly in the architectural detailing, such as the use of brise-soleils and cobogos in the rectilinear façades. In this context, the way the hospital's social agents create, register and propagate meanings is apprehended and interpreted through the ethnographic method, whose attribution also addresses the memories that permeate the former Barros Barreto Sanatorium, as well as demonstrates the articulation between architectural space and the relationships developed in it. Thus, the evidence of the importance of the perceptions of the social, historical and cultural contexts point to the process of patrimoniality, from the point of view of social agents, corroborating to demonstrate the importance of the recognition of a heritage based on lived experiences, narratives, affective relationships, in addition to history, which characterize its existence and, in the case of HUJBB, the resistance in face of the transformations given in the name of a modernization of the hospital space.