| Although many buildings in what is now called the Historic District of Salvador were converted into tenements in the twentieth century, this zone embraces one of the largest collections of colonial architecture in South America. Chapter 1 shows how the 1933 destruction of the Igreja da Se, one of Brazil's oldest churches, mobilized a segment of the local elite to construct a vision of public space that protected Salvador's colonial architecture (rather than emulating campaigns designed to replace old structures with modern ones). The idea that Salvador maintained a connection to Brazil's colonial period and past traditions became part of the city's identity and touristic profile.Chapters 2 and 3 show how Salvador completed this profile by acknowledging (and marketing) the city's contemporary culture, tied to the downtown center as a place of display. Along with national valorizations of Afro-Brazilian cultural elements in the early twentieth century, Salvador developed the reputation as the most "Brazilian" of cities because of its vibrant culture---supposed evidence of its racial and cultural fusion, and easy race relations. Chapters 4 and 5 suggest that, beginning in the 1960s, the Bahia state government deployed a romanticized version of the colonial period (in restored architectural "glory") and the contemporary one (involving folklorized portrayals of Afro-Bahian cultural elements as evidence of the city's multicultural, welcoming atmosphere) to attract tourists. Cultural producers, activists, and others challenged these representations, arguing that government plans to restore Historic District buildings privileged tourists over city residents. The problems of poverty, unemployment, and homelessness were pushed out of the downtown center, unacknowledged, they argued, by either the state government or by tourists.The complex significance of the downtown center in the colonial period---a place of display of colonial authority and of challenges to it---and the multivalent collective memories embodied there---especially regarding the legacies of slavery and cultural resistance---continued into the twentieth century. Despite attempts to market an idealized vision of city life and to smooth over conflicts regarding the use of urban space, the downtown Historic District remained a contested site, highly visible because of its connections to tourism. |
