John F. C. Turner in Salvador (1968)

approaches to the Brazilian housing problem

Abstract

Little has been written about the possible repercussions of John F. C. Turner's thinking in Brazil even though he played a relevant role in the discussion on the self-built city and social housing in the late 1960s. His approach to the capital city of the State of Bahia cannot be separated from events on a state and national scale. In fact, what we can see is that Turner's arrival in Brazil did not have as much repercussion as one would expect if we take as a reference the news published in the newspapers at the time. This panorama reveals to us that Turner was one more expert who arrived in the country at the time, and perhaps for this reason his stay and work in the country were eclipsed by, or even shared with, that of other professionals. Thus, some questions arise: what was specifically happening in Salvador in terms of social housing? What were the arrangements that made it possible for him to move to Salvador? What places did he visit? What did he talk about? The purpose of this article is to answer those questions.