Patrimônio, memória e identidade: a paisagem cultural da área central da cidade de Santa Maria/RS

Abstract

The importance of the cultural landscape in the construction of the identity of places is notorious. Santa Maria, a city in the "heart" of Rio Grande do Sul, had significant importance in the twentieth century for its great economic and urban growth, and currently, it is suffering with the decay and devaluation of its heritage, a situation worsened by the lack of political concerns for the valuation of its public spaces. By choosing the city as the object of research and considering its cultural landscape remaining from historical processes, this dissertation is dedicated to characterize and identify the shaping elements of the cultural landscape of the central area of the city of Santa Maria/RS. The methodological procedures developed and applied are divided into four stages, starting with a theoretical and documental analysis, which will help characterize the cultural landscape of the central area with the mapping of the shaping elements. This will be followed by the application of questionnaires to technicians and specialists in order to obtain the evaluation of the degree of importance of the elements, and together with the next stage of analysis by the author, will serve as a basis for defining the objectives of landscape quality and presentation of the perceptual attributes. Finally, it is intended to introduce measures for maintenance, management and planning of the cultural landscape of the central area of the city of Santa Maria/RS. As results the public and built spaces were identified, characterized, valued and spatialized with the help of geotechnologies, being these elements considered extremely important in their majority. Still, proposals are presented for measures of maintenance, management and planning of the landscape, which should attract the attention of managers and the community in general on behalf of these public and built heritage assets so important for maintaining the identity of the central area.