On the 2021 Rio de Janeiro Charter (Author's English translation)

The 2021 Rio de Janeiro Charter presents conclusions and proposals for 21st-century cities and may also be read as a portrait of the dominant perspectives through which society, the economy, and the contemporary city are approached. This article offers a critical analysis of the Charter through an alternative thematic reorganization of its original structure, based on the quantification and regrouping of references to its main topics. The analysis highlights the predominance of social, political, and environmental constraints over reflections properly related to architecture and urbanism, as well as the limited emphasis on architecture as a design discipline. Author’s English translation of the article “Sobre a Carta do Rio 2021”, originally published in Drops (Vitruvius) in 2022. Available at: https://vitruvius.com.br/revistas/read/drops/22.177/8508