The enxaimel architecture: identity, memory, and patrimonial dimension in Itapiranga/SC

Abstract

Colonization Porto Novo, in the west of Santa Catarina, currently the municipalities of Itapiranga, São João do Oeste and Tunápolis, was founded in 1926 to be an area of Germanic and Catholic population. Idealized by the Volksverein (Popular Union Society) it received families of the former German colonies of the South of Brazil, as well as immigrants from Germany. In this ethnic and confessional nucleus, cultural patterns and life forms were developed, which constituted a prospect of identity, among which, the present article intends to analyze the forms of colonial edification, more precisely the enxaimel architecture. For this, the text starts from a bibliographical analysis and an empirical research to understand how this architectural technique was shaped in this colonization and presents itself in the current scenario, with the perspective of problematizing the contemporary uses of the half-timber in the local architecture.