History

The Aterro do Flamengo (area reclaimed from the sea) on the shore of the Bay of Guanabara, in Rio de Janeiro, between Santos Dumont Airport and the inlet of Botafogo, as well as the urbanisation of the Flamengo Park, date from the decade of the 1950s (the park was designed between 1954 and 1959), with works only beginning in 1961. The urban planning and architecture projects that define the Aterro and its occupation fell to the architect Affonso Eduardo Reidy (1909 - 1964) of the Department of Urban Planning of the Municipal Authority of Rio de Janeiro. Burle Marx (1909 - 1994) was responsible for the landscaping project. Lotta Macedo Soares (1910 - 1967) also played a decisive role in realising these projects. The park, which stretches for 7 km and has an area of 1,301,306 m2, includes gardens for the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro (MAM/RJ) (1954), and for the National Monument to the Dead of the Second World War (1956), as well as incorporating the existing Salgado Filho square in front of the airport. The wide gardened area links the Centre to the South Zone of the city via expressways, also including a 1,500m long artificial beach, a strip for model aircraft, pitches for sports, playgrounds and a tank for model boats. The Aterro in itself was built with material from the razing of the Hill of Santo Antônio, with works beginning between 1952 and 1954 under the administration of the mayor Dulcídio Cardoso, and concluded in 1958, under the administration of the mayor Francisco Negrão de Lima. The razing of the hill, the large Aterro that accompanies the course of the former Beira-Mar Avenue and the construction of the park were conceived as an integrated project despite their realisation during different periods. The objective of the  three initiatives was to allow the creation of valuable areas in the central area of the city, and above all, the construction of expressways linking the Centre with Copacabana. The idea of reclaiming areas of the sea through land reclamation was an attempt by the municipal administration to avoid the high cost of disappropriations necessary for expanding the principal arteries of Flamengo, Catete, Glória and Botafogo. The urban planning project for the reclaimed area, completed in 1965, involved the construction of wide lanes for traffic flow and various leisure areas, with three underground passages and five overhead walkways giving access to the beaches and parks.

The Flamengo land reclamation project was conceived as part of a series of initiatives that aimed to solve the road traffic problem within Rio de Janeiro. Between 1950 and 1960, the city suffered from a major urban explosion, fed by intense flows of migrants. The physical expasion of the urban network accelerated during the period, and with it the distances between the centre and the suburbs increased. The growth in favelas and the acceleration of construction of high rise blocks in the South Zone date from this period, with a consequent increase in population density. The collapse in the road network and the growing difficulty of access to the centre made it essential to improve traffic routes. The fever for building viaducts and new avenues within Rio de Janeiro under the administration of Carlos Lacerda (1961 - 1965), e.g. the Santa Bárbara and Rebouças tunnels, the extension of the Maracanã avenue, the Novo Rio bus station and the conclusion of the Aterro expressway with the urbanisation of the Flamengo park, expressed the eagerness to solve the problem, which mobilized administrators, architects and urban planners. Affonso Reidy had taken part in several of these urbanisation projects since 1929, when he worked with Alfred Agache (1875 - 1959) on drawing up an overall plan for the city. During the 1940s, he became involved with solutions for the central area of the city and the urbanisation of the area arising from the raising of the Hill of Santo Antônio. At this point, the traffic, the links between commercial and residential zones as well as between the South zone and the Centre were the principal challenges facing the urban planner. The Aterro and the Flamengo park are among Reidy's major achievements within the city and he not only conceived the project as a whole but was also responsible for designing the MAM/RJ, for the overhead walkway in front of the museum, for the bandstand and for the games pavillion.

The Flamengo Aterro complex in turn contains some of Burle Marx's most important landscaping projects. The Salgado Filho square, one of his first landscaping projects, stands out due to its bringing together of various natural species, the conception of the ground which mixes stone and lawn and the sinuous stone bench that accompanies the flower beds. The gardens around the MAM/RJ have another profile: a rectangular outline, straight lines and orthogonal flower beds, defining, according to some scholars, a more Constructivist  phase in his landscaping art. The Brigadeiro Eduardo Gomes (1961) park, on which Reidy, Jorge Moreira, Carlos Werneck de Carvalho and Hélio Mamede worked, is characterised by the articulation of landscaping projects for small corners and wide garden areas along the expressways of the Flamengo Aterro. In 1999, the Aterro was restored and revitalised by the practice, Burle Marx & Cia. Ltda.