Qualla: Historic Center of Caxias do Sul

Historic Center of Caxias do Sul: Introduction

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. There was a time, not so long ago, when speaking Italian in this city could land you in jail. During the Vargas era of the late 1930s, the federal government set out to erase what it called "foreignisms," and the descendants of Caxias do Sul's immigrant founders learned to keep quiet. They stopped celebrating the grape harvest. They tore down their grandparents' houses without a second thought. The Historic Center - the dense grid of streets around Dante Alighieri Square where the whole city began - became, in the words of one researcher, invisible to the very people who lived among it. Only in recent decades has Caxias begun to see it again.

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Historic Center of Caxias do Sul: Campo dos Bugres

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ricardo630, CC BY-SA 4.0. Before the surveyors arrived, this high clearing was a resting place. Muleteers driving cattle down from the Campos de Cima da Serra would stop here, where springs broke the surface and an open field offered grazing, on the long haul toward the river port at Sao Sebastiao do Cai....

Image: Ricardo630 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Historic Center of Caxias do Sul: The Chessboard and the Rua Grande

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. On January 10, 1879, a land commission approved Luiz Manoel de Azevedo's plan for the town: a Roman grid, straight streets crossing at right angles like a chessboard. It was an act of imposition. Houses and shops already stood here, built where their owners pleased, and many were...

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Historic Center of Caxias do Sul: What the Wrecking Ball Took

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Progress arrived like a flood, and it drowned much of the old city. As Caxias verticalized through the mid-20th century, swelling with arrivals from the countryside drawn by its wealth, the colonial, Art Nouveau, eclectic, and Art Deco architecture of the center vanished at the s...

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Historic Center of Caxias do Sul: Learning to Look Again

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ricardo André Frantz (User:Tetraktys), CC BY-SA 3.0. Recovery came slowly, and against the grain of a city that had taught itself to forget. The Municipal Museum reopened in 1975 and began gathering the scattered fragments of a discarded past; the Historical Archive followed a year later. In 2007 the General Plan finally drew a pro...

Image: Ricardo André Frantz (User:Tetraktys) | CC BY-SA 3.0