Nude Colour: Race in Flávio de Carvalho’s “A Cidade do Homem Nu”

Abstract

This paper discusses “A cidade do homem nu”, Flávio de Carvalho’s (1930) proposal for an imaginary city arranged in concentric circles. In this city, Carvalho claimed, man would live free of Christian values such as marriage and property. A prolific architect, writer, and artist active for over two decades, Carvalho’s work has been studied in relation to Brazilian modernismo. In this sense, “A cidade do homem nu” can be understood as an avant-garde manifesto challenging traditional institutions and taboos. However, this paper reads “A cidade do homem nu” as a utopia that should be considered in dialogue with Brazilian racial dynamics. Specifically, I argue that Carvalho posits a utopian city that can be thought of along the lines of Gilberto Freyre’s controversial praise of miscegenation. First, I offer close readings of the text’s scarce but decisive racially marked references in relation to the topic of nudity. Second, I examine Carvalho’s circular diagram and its likely architectural sources, as well as actual urban reforms that were carried out in Brazil at the beginning of the twentieth century. Nudity and circles evoke and fuse different historical and cultural layers in Brazilian society that destabilise notions of linear time and the idea of miscegenation itself.