Porto Alegre’s waterfront near the Usina do Gasômetro. (Photo by Katia Goretti via Flickr)

On an unseasonably warm Friday afternoon in Brazil’s wintry July, the sun hung low in the sky on its way to the horizon. Couples strolled casually soaking up the rays, a young guy strummed a guitar while sitting in the grass and several dozen people ready to greet the weekend sat to watch, sipping chimarrão, the ubiquitous local tea known elsewhere as yerba mate. The scene was downtown Porto Alegre on the shores of the Guaíba Lake, the vast body of water that abuts the city to the west.

The most popular spot from which to watch the sinking sun is in the shadow of the Usina do Gasômetro, a 1920s gem of industrial architecture whose coal-fired power plant was decommissioned in 1970, saved from demolition in the 1980s, and ultimately preserved as a cultural center that has become a civic icon with its towering brick chimney. In 1988, four activists from APAGAN, the state’s oldest environmental advocacy group, climbed the chimney and unfurled a banner that read “No to the Guaíba Beach Project.” Their transgressive act came in the throes of Brazil’s democratic transition and successfully kept privatization of the lakefront at bay......Continue Reading

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