little before 1930. In 1935, the city celebrated one hundred years of
freeway system, including the Avenida Castelo Branco, crossing under
using the main roads of the National Road Plan”6. The controversy
Farroupilha War urbanizing Campo da Redenção, renaming it Parque
the access ramps of the Guaíba bridge, and the Porto Alegre – Osório
dominated the discussions leading to the decision to construct a
Farroupilha, whose preliminary drawings were signed by Alfred Agache
highway known as the Free-Way.
bridge system on the Jacuí Delta.
The crossings
the barge system had been ruled out, began to be looked at from
and design and construction by Christiano Gelbert. In terms of urban planning, since 1914 the city had been expecting
The need to span across the Guaíba, once the idea of modernizing
the implementation of the General Improvements Plan, made by
From the southern end of the city, not far from the new Jockey
three perspectives: A - south of the capital, B - starting at the center
engineer and architect João Moreira Maciel. The Plan basically
Club, the barges departed crossing Lake Guaíba towards the south of
of town, and C - taking off from the north. Any of the above had to
established road and sanitation guidelines, allowing for the widening
the State. The barge system was implemented in 1941 by DAER, at the
take into account water crossing leaving a 40 meter span for vessel
and opening of new streets in the city center. Between the years of 1928
Ponta do Dionísio, in the Vila Assunção neighborhood, to replace the
traffic. Important aspects such as the cost of each alternative and the
and 1932, the most important enterprise for the modernization of Porto
precarious system run by a boat transportation company until then.
issue of pass through traffic were compared. However, other issues
Alegre, was the opening of Avenida Borges de Medeiros, including the
The new barges, according to engineer Waelter Haetinger, were bought
were raised, such as one put by engineer Waelter Haetinger, who,
construction of the Otávio Rocha overpass, by Manoel Itaqui. Another
as an emergency measure during and right after the Second World
advocating the choice of the north, even used the military argument
important project from the same period was the opening of Avenida
War4. They could carry 22 cars or 9 buses, an average of 15 vehicles.
to facilitate the deployment of troops and the proximity of an air
Farrapos, in 1937, towards the airport and the northern exit of the city.
Because they were an adaptation with only one access, they were
base. Arguing against the tunnel in the Gasômetro, he pointed out
This was the main road in metropolitan Porto Alegre, and became part
forced to make complex maneuvers to dock. The average crossing time
the psychological aspects and the number of tunnel accidents the
of the BR-2 (today 116) and of the path leading to the Guaíba bridge.
was 1 hour and 30 minutes for a little over 5 km. New barges were
international media had been publishing.
Porto Alegre started the 1950’s with a population of 394 000
added to the fleet as needed, yet the system did not keep up with the
Engineer and architect Edyrceu Fontoura, from DAER, in favor of
inhabitants. At he end of the decade, it had reached 635 000.
growth in traffic. In 1954, 6 barges were in operation, transporting 246
the north solution, conducted a study about the urban development
This growth rate, quite impressive as compared with numbers
000 vehicles and 827 000 passengers, these numbers were increasing
of Porto Alegre, focusing on the evolution of public means of
today, became a recurrent subject in the academic and technical
twofold every three to four years5.
transportation. His valuable work7 included detailed maps, with slide
communities. The fast growing city needed to be modernized. In
In 1948, engineer Clovis Pestana, Transport Minister during the
overlay and a wealth of historical data and numbers, and showed a
Brazil at that time, modernizing meant rebuilding cities inspired in
President Dutra administration, deployed the DNER and the DAER
great deal of urban sensibility. It compares Porto Alegre with other big
the modern movement, replacing the old street network with fast
to solve the growing deficiencies in the barge system. The proposed
cities and forecasts with rare clairvoyance, a lot of what became true
boulevards with huge buildings erected distant from each other.
solution was a tunnel underwater linking Ponta do Gasômetro to
in Porto Alegre, such as the deterioration of the city center because
Ilha da Pintada. It generated great controversy and turned into one
of the excessive proliferation of high rises. It shows similarities
risk of completely disappearing. However, a number of big size
of the hottest technical debates the city has ever been through. To
with the city of Rio de Janeiro, with a residential use of the space in
construction works of exceptional architectural quality, introduced
settle the dispute involving important officials in road transportation,
the southern end and more industries and services located in the
a positive modernist footprint in Porto Alegre as of 1952. The most
the DAER created a committee under the coordination of engineers
northern areas8.
important emerged from the partnership between the local Azevedo,
João Carlos Teixeira, Marcus Kruter and A. M. Waldock to study and
Moura & Gertum building company with Uruguayan Architect Román
compare solutions for crossing the lake. The result of this study
departed from, in Vila Assunção, making a direct connection with the
Fresnedo Siri, who won the contest to construct the new building
was presented and debated in the engineering community and the
city of Guaíba. Despite the advantage of being the shortest southbound
of the Rio Grande do Sul Jockey Club. This architectural compound
technical arguments were made public in the DAER publications. The
way and making a direct link between the urban areas of both cities,
was inaugurated in 1959. Another important building was the Court
local population followed the discussion through long articles and
the stretch over the water was longer. In addition, all the traffic from
of Appeals (Tribunal de Justiça), designed in 1953 by Architects Luiz
transcripts published in the city newspapers.
the north would have to cross long urban parts of Porto Alegre. The
The traditional city was yet again under pressure running the
Fernando Corona and Carlos Maximiliano Fayet. The implementation of the Jockey Club compound in Baía do
One of the first options under study was to modernize the barge
The A solution suggested a bridge exactly where the barges
estimated cost of crossing 5 450 meters, with a 100 meter long
system, replacing the old barges with larger ferries more adequate for
50 meter high central span and an 8 meter deck (single lane), was
Cristal is, to a certain extent, a result of the enormous natural disaster
this type of crossing. The National Road Plan, however, preferred a dry
almost the same as the final solution, but at much higher urban
in 1941: the flooding of the Guaíba. It was the plan to protect the
road crossing. As put by Walter Haetinger, “the link between north and
construction costs. This solution seemed to have been easily ruled out,
city surrounding it by a belt of landfills and dikes, that allowed the
south, through Porto Alegre, is ultimately a problem of city crossing,
Porto Alegre local authorities to offer the land reclaimed form the lake in exchange for the old club building, at the location of today’s Parque Moinhos de Vento. The dikes were used for the construction of a
One Crossing, Many Bridges
84
6 4 5
Waelter Haetinger. Op. cit. Idem.
7 8
Ibidem. Edyrceu Fontoura. “Aspecto urbano na travessia do Guaíba”. DAER, 1954. Idem