30/01/2026
Less than two months after the report denouncing the demolition of one of the historic buildings designed by Oscar Niemeyer at the CTA in São José dos Campos, the demolition of the Duque de Caxias Gateway was confirmed. The structure had been designed in partnership with Jair Valera in the 2000s.
The gateway constituted a modest yet significant example of the formal and structural explorations that, especially throughout the 1950s, contributed to the consolidation of aesthetic boldness allied with technical innovation as a defining trait of Niemeyer’s work and, more broadly, of Brazilian modern architecture—still today associated with the pioneering character of this constructive technology.
This episode highlights a lack of transparency and responsibility in the use of public resources, since a work built with state funding was demolished without prior notice or technical justification, and, to date, no new use has been announced for the site.
Only those who have never built something intended to endure are incapable of understanding how easy it is to destroy it.