For the past 15 years I have been researching architectural pieces in iron, which came from Europe to Brazil in the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. They arrived here as residues of a dreaming world, in the words of Walter Benjamin, residues of a developed, rich and colonialist Europe. And they never lost a certain air of fantasy and mirage, particular to all the elements implanted in distant regions with completely different cultural contexts. There are many and very interesting examples of these pieces in Brazil, constituting part of our national historic and artistic heritage. However, this article will concentrate on those that came as part of the São Paulo Railway.

Inaugurated in 1867, this railway company was created to transport the wealth from agriculture, especially from coffee production. Strategically located, it established the fundamental link between the interior of São Paulo state, the richest agricultural region at that time - dedicated to the production of coffee - and the port of Santos, which was the first modernized port in Brazil. The farmers developed, by their own initiative, big coffee plantations for export. They counted on the participation of Brazilian and English capitalists in the construction of the railway, which was well succeeded in every aspect and constituted one of the best business deals of the century, for everyone involved.

Together with the railway, train stations and even entire cities were built, presenting new concepts of engineering and architecture and including a great amount of structures and pieces in iron. The Estação da Luz, first of them to be built, the main station in the city of São Paulo, is a very good example. The building was projected by Charles Henry Driver (1832-1900), architect who was also responsible for the design of the ornaments commissioned to the Saracen Foundry of Walter MacFarlane & Co. Other enterprises also took part in this construction, such as Hayward Brothers Borough London's, Dorman & Co, A. M. Kerrow, Westminster & Frederik Braby & Co, Engineers & Contractors, London. Almost everything in this building came from Great Britain: the project, the structures in iron and steel, the red bricks, the wood and all the details. It is, in this sense, a European building transported to Brazil. This can be explained by the fact that all products and equipments imported for the railway entered the country free of taxes. For this reason, not only locomotives, trains and advanced technology elements (which would necessarily have to be imported), but also ornamental pieces, furniture and all kind of manufactures would come from abroad.

Inaugurated in March 1st, 1901, the Estação da Luz was conceived in colossal proportions for Brazil of that time, with 7.500 square meters. It became, since the very first moment, a landmark in São Paulo cityscape. The columnists of the time would comment on the monumental size of the construction, on its eclectic architecture in "Doric Italian" style and on the beauty of iron in contrast with masonry. In fact, the personality of the building is so strong that it demands our attention to this day, even if it has been built for a city of 200 thousand inhabitants, compared to the 14 millions of today. Its big tower exceeded those of the colonial churches and only a few years after its construction it became a city reference.

The station also housed a restaurant decorated with columns and ornamental supports made in iron by Walter MacFarlane & Co, which soon became one of the most elegant meeting points of local society. It thus overcame its strictly utilitarian role, linked to transport, to become a place with strong power of attraction, due, in part, to the strength of a new European visuality.
With the decline of the railways and their substitution by road transport in the 1950's, the Luz changed its status, becoming a big terminal of suburban trains in which crowds of workers transit every day.
The building has been through various restorations, including recently initiated works that should be finished in 2005. Nevertheless, the traditional aspects of the station, built by the English and Scottish, still predominate over the modifications that were necessary in more than 100 years.

A series of stations were also built in the countryside of the São Paulo state, along the lines of this railway, and the large proportion of them that has been preserved is surprising. This conservation may be due to their aspect of European legacy, of something coming from England and also linked to a reality of local richness. Such a significant group of countryside stations, all built according to the same Victorian architectural basis and with no relation to the architecture and constructive methods utilized here, is something hard to find. This may be why they so quickly overcame their utilitarian role, becoming fragments of dreams, evocating a distant and idealized Europe.

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Cacilda Teixeira da Costa

Ph.D., Art History, University of São Paulo. Fields of specialization: modern and contemporary art of Brazil; research, curatorial and book publishing activities.

She is the author of The Dream and the Technique, Iron Architecture in Brazil, São Paulo, Edusp, 1994 (awarded the Prêmio Jabuti, 1995)

Translated from Portuguese by Carla Zaccagnini.

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