Industrial and Railroad Heritage

This paper studies the context of the central area contiguous with the iron bed of medium-sized cities of the northwest region of São Paulo, in Brazil, namely: Presidente Prudente, Araçatuba, Birigüi, São José do Rio Preto and Marilia. Not surprisingly, the ancient boundaries of railway lines crossing the countryside regions. These urban centers were developed by the expansion of the railway, but with the deactivation of the rail transport, its core areas went into obsolescence and deterioration process and, more recently, are suffering processes of modernization and productive restructuring. At the same time, amid the industrial landscapes and decaying railroad heritage, there are situations and dweller types able to reveal some imaginary, capable of triggering: surprises, dilemmas and entanglements in the analysis of urban composition, the modernization process and its consequent deterioration. Therefore, from the marginal uses present in each city of the northwestern country towns of São Paulo, we try explain a poltical and critical point of view of these urban areas. Thus, the marginal architecture is not only the expression of subaltern subjectivities, reflecting the complexities present in emblematic areas of public importance, affected by degradation processes, but also, the attempt to define a concept strategy: a destabilizing way of reading places filled with meaning, in the counterculture of the hegemonic space to make experimental projects.