O imaginário urbano sobre o Centro Histórico de Manaus

um olhar através dos cartões-postais da Belle Époque Amazônica

Abstract

The Historic Centre of Manaus, capital city of the state of Amazonas, Brazil has its formation process and composition characterized by the plurality of cultural references – and it has been recently inscribed by the National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage (IPHAN) on the List of Historic Heritages, as well as on the List of Archeologic, Ethnographic, and Landscape Heritages. This article consists in a brief discussion about the urban imaginary associated with this space, as evidenced by means of a survey and interpretation of iconographic sources that portray Manaus in the last decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century – the so-called Belle Époque Amazônica. Specifically, it has been surveyed and interpreted photographs published as postcards that portray what would become, a century later, the built assets of the Historic Center of Manaus. The analysis of this iconographic collection shows the dissemination of a discourse in which Manaus is increasingly referred to as the Paris of the Tropics, which, however, does not contemplate the totality of images that constitute the local imaginary.