A Communist working for Washington? the transnational trajectory of architect Gildo Guerra and the urban policies of the Inter-American Development Bank for Latin America

This paper examines the transnational career of Gildo Guerra, a Brazilian architect-planner whose praxis intertwined political activism, regionalist urban planning and top-down development policies propagated by United States-backed initiatives during the Cold War. Guerra’s early involvement in social housing initiatives during the left-wing government in Pernambuco that preceded the 1964 coup and his leadership in an innovative participatory project represented an alternative to U.S.-led Alliance for Progress policies. Chased in Brazil after the coup due to his involvement with the Brazilian Communist Party, his trajectory shifted after a brief exile in Mexico when he joined the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), serving as a consultant across Latin America, specifically in Colombia, Paraguay, Honduras and Ecuador. Drawing on field research in Brazil and the U.S., archival investigations and oral history, this article highlights Latin America's strategic role in the Cold War rivalries. Ultimately, by unveiling the transnational networks of expertise and funding that shaped urban transformation, this study provides critical insights into the complex interactions between local agency and global economic forces, repositioning Guerra’s movements within dynamic forces that structured concrete actions during the Cold War period and revealing entanglements rather than oppositions.