Sobre os simulacros urbanos e a percepção da cidade, um estudo de caso

Abstract

From the concepts of Baudrillard (1991) about simulacra and simulation, this research parts of the idea that horizontal condominiums are characterized as urban simulacra. These promote the creation of urban environments that synthesize and simplify the reality of the city, making any distinction and unexpected encounters in the social environment controllable, seeking to deny the reality of the majority, in na attempt to build a metropolis rather referenced in a past that can no longer exist. Given that, the main object of this research is that the Condominium Aldebaran was the first closed subdivision built in the city of Maceió. We started from the hypothesis that the Condominium Aldebaran can be characterized as an urban simulation, since it has all the structural features that enable simplification of reality outside the walls and potentiates a lifestyle that denies the negative aspects experienced by the majority of the city’s population. Such experience in this virtually idealized space of Aldebaran can create depoliticized citizens, regardless of their rights and obligations toward the common good of the city, making the realities on the condo more important than the outside walls. This can result in a perception of indifference about the real problems of the city, and only the issues that directly affect the tenants pass to matter.