Migration : Reflections from a Looking Glass

Abstract

Rodrigo Lefèvre’s Master’s dissertation, Project for a Work Encampment: A Utopia, offers a production model for migrant housing along the periphery of São Paulo based upon mutually enriching collaborations between migrants constructing their dwellings and mentoring technicians. This partnership, an evolution of previous theories on eliminating hierarchical relationships between architects and laborers at building sites, recalls the foundational principles underpinning Lefèvre’s earlier collaborations with Sérgio Ferro and Flávio Império under the collective Arquitetura Nova. In his proposed work encampment, these interactions become a mechanism to rebalance cultural transmission away from delegitimizing migrant heritage and towards an equitable and heterogenous urban demography. Though suggested as a utopia, this framework also may be understood as a heterotopia—an alternate yet plausibly concurrent paradigm for the construction of migrant housing. As a heterotopia, Lefèvre’s proposal, similar to other texts published by the members of Arquitetura Nova, is simultaneously a critique of prevailing conditions as well as an aspirational solution. And, as both criticism and expectation, Lefèvre’s project illustrates the important contributions made by migrants in the development of society and invites us to evaluate and rediscover our empathy towards them.