icons of education and modernity: Lyceu de Goiânia, Model School Group and Education Institute

Abstract

This article deals with three pioneering school buildings in Goiânia, from the historiographical and architectural points of view: Lyceu de Goiânia (1937), Grupo Escolar Modelo – current Colégio José Carlos de Almeida (1938) – and Instituto de Educação de Goiás (1946). The approach is to present the importance of these buildings as Cultural Heritage, and their respective values at the time of construction of the landscape of the planned capital. The discussion about modernity is necessary to identify a part of the history of educational architecture in Goiás, materialized in buildings as representations of the desired future through education as a development strategy. Thus, the interest is to understand the innovations of these buildings, concerning Brazilian republican school models, through their spatialities and languages. The analysis of architectural projects allows us to infer and reveal the original intentions and founding myths. Programmatic aspects, cultural and educational paradigms, and their location in the urban fabric give clues about their role as vectors of the city development. As intended contributions, one expects to bring visibility to the pioneer educational buildings, icons of the development of the “March to the West”, and to deepen criticisms about the spatiality of the scholar typology and its role as a space for social transformation and knowledge production.