Resumo

PLAZA, Penélope. From Bentham to Le Corbusier: Vigilance and discipline in modern Latin American social housing. The Pedregulho Housing Complex, Río de Janeiro, Brasil (1947-1958). Atenea (Concepc.) [online]. 2011, n.504, pp. 111-130. ISSN 0718-0462.  doi: 10.4067/S0718-04622011000200007.

This article explores the relationship between the institutions of power that commissioned the first projects of modern social housing in Latin America, its architecture and inhabitants. The Pedregulho Housing Complex is an exemplary case study, built between 1947 and 1952 in Brazil. The new architecture of the modern social housing projects in Latin American was conceived as a vehicle for "social transformation". For this aim, the relationship between power, architecture and tenants is established in "panoptic" terms, with clear references to forms of imprisonment proposed since the Enlightenment as studied by the philosopher Michel Foucault (such as Bentham's Panopticon) and that will resonate with Le Corbusier's ideas for the new modern city.

Palavras-chave : Social housing; panopticon; modernism; Foucault; Le Corbusier; Latin America.