Praça da Matemática: as faces da história na construção de um monumento

Abstract

This work consists in a historical-cultural research of construction of a Plaza with a monument in homage to Mathematics, it was idealized by a visionary mayor, 29 years old, in a city called Itaocara, interior of the State of Rio de Janeiro, in 1943. What is now a touristic attraction arose from the creativity of a young politician. Although he was a lawyer, he saw in mathematics his source of pleasure. To write this research, there was an interview with the mayor of that time, currently with 94 years old, with the inhabitants, and the daughter of the constructor of the square, in addition, the examination of documents, historical photos, and similar stuffs. The director of the project was the mathematician Malba Tahan (pseudonym of Júlio César de Mello e Souza) organized a selecting process with his students of the National School of Fine Arts of the University of Brazil, today Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). The winner was Mr. Godofredo Formenti. The Square was built by Mr. Italarico Alves, a citizen of Itaocara and the single official builder of the town and despite his low education, he made a geometrically perfect work, under the coordination of Malba Tahan, resulting in the unique monument in the world, capable of highlighting the poetic power of the mathematics art in the process of re-inventing the socio-historical-cultural of a countryside community, which concretizes its pride in the maxim that "who knows does the time, do not wait it to occur