A concrete vein has been extinguished in downtown Rio de Janeiro, which once again overlooks Guanabara Bay. Officially named after former Brazilian president Juscelino Kubitschek, the Perimetral Elevated Highway went from being an urban landmark to a massive cement monstrosity in the middle of the metropolis in a matter of decades.

Its demolition sparked a fierce "Fla-Flu" protest. Many criticized the construction and called for its demolition. At the same time, others opposed its demolition, fearing that it would further congest Rio's traffic.

There was no way around it. By order of Mayor Eduardo Paes, starting in 2013, the tons of concrete and steel fell to the ground. Their fall became the subject of the temporary exhibition "Perimetral" at the Museum of Tomorrow, curated by artist Vik Muniz and with artistic direction by Andrucha Waddington.

Former symbol

The winding giant of steel and cement began to be planned in the 1940s, when Rio was still the capital of Brazil and already showed signs that, years later, it would feel the effects of the increase in the automobile fleet.

The project came to fruition in 1957 and the first part of the viaduct, connecting General Justo and Presidente Vargas avenues, was inaugurated in 1960. The rest of the Perimetral, from Praça Mauá to the Rio-Niterói Bridge, was built over 18 years and finally delivered in 1978. More than three decades after the first drafts of the project, Rio's South Zone would be connected to two of the main accesses to Rio - the Bridge and Avenida Brasil.

The delay did not prevent the project from becoming, at the time, a symbol of the integration of the Metropolitan Region of Rio de Janeiro and a highly efficient route.

"The Perimetral followed other related models in the world of suspended urban highways, geared toward automobiles. The concept of modal integration, as it is today, was not yet prevalent, nor was there concern for environmental sustainability," says Paulo Knauss, history professor at Fluminense Federal University (UFF). "It's a symbol of another era."

New times

The idea of dismantling the Perimetral Highway isn't new. It originated with former mayor Luiz Paulo Conde (1997-2001). But it was with Rio's election as the host city for the 2016 Olympics that the plan to "kill" the highway was put into practice. A new road project was developed in 2009 and put out to tender in 2010. Projects that would have replaced the Perimetral's heavy traffic, such as the Via Binário, were designed to eliminate the viaduct.

Alberto Gomes, president of the Urban Development Company of the Port Region of Rio (Cdurp), considers the fall of the Perimetral a turning point so that, according to him, people knew that the priority was now quality of life over individual transport.

"It was a transformative element for the city, bringing light to places that had remained hidden until then. We're already seeing the results of this demolition and revitalization with the construction of Praça Mauá," he explains. "The demolition of the Perimetral is Rio's message to the rest of the world that sustainable urbanization is possible."

For Knauss, it takes time to see, in practice, the expectation of an urban planning model “where functions coexist side by side” in the port region, that is, common areas for work, leisure and residence.

The historian also mentions concerns about gentrification, a social phenomenon that affects large cities undergoing infrastructure projects.

"We still need to wait to see whether the current urban reforms represent a new way of thinking about and structuring the city, or whether we will continue to witness the expansion of the social exclusion model, which pushes the undesirable to other, more distant areas and creates better conditions for the expansion of real estate capital," says Knauss.