At the inauguration of the First Brazilian Congress of Eugenics in July of 1929, the physician and anthropologist Edgar Roquette-Pinto addressed an audience preoccupied with the question of how a country as vast as Brazil could best increase and improve its population. To accomplish this, Roquette-Pinto exalted ?eugenia? as the new science that, together with medicine and hygiene, would guarantee the efficiency and perfection of the race. With the following words, the Brazilian scientist underscored a positivist agenda that brought architecture to the very core of the eugenics?the so-called science of race ?improvement??movement: ?It is critical to emphasize that the influence [on our race] does not stem from the natural environment but rather from the artificial environment, created by man.? With these opening remarks to the Congress, Roquette-Pinto called attention to the crucial role that the man-made environment plays in the ?amelioration? of what he called ?the biological patrimony? of Brazil?s diverse population. In his invitation to social engineering, Roquette Pinto pointed to the environmental-genetic collusion that they hoped would bring with it the very possibility of progress.
Augusto Malta, Demolition Morro do Castelo, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, June 1, 1922. . Image Courtesy of Biblioteca Nacional Digital Brasil, Fundação Biblioteca Nacional.

At the inauguration of the First Brazilian Congress of Eugenics in July of 1929, the physician and anthropolog...