15th INTERNATIONAL PLANNING HISTORY SOCIETY CONFERENCE THE THEORETICAL AND TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE ON THE CONFIGURATION AND RECONFIGURATION OF THE CITIES EMERGED FROM THE OPENING OF PIONEER ZONES IN THE WEST OF SÃO PAULO (BRAZIL) ADALBERTO DA SILVA RETTO JR, MARTA ENOKIBARA, NORMA R. T.CONSTANTINO Address: Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp) Faculdade de Arquitetura, Artes e Comunicação Av. Eng. Luiz Edmundo C. Coube 14-01, Bauru – SP, CEP 17033-360- Brasil Phone: + 55 14 3103.6059 e-mail: rettojunior@hotmail.com,marta@faac.unesp.br,nconst@faac.unesp.br ABSTRACT This study is part of the Theme Project of FAPESP “Saberes eruditos e técnicos na configuração e reconfiguração do espaço urbano. Estado de São Paulo, séculos XIX e XX”, under the responsability of a group of professsors of Unesp. Under a long diachronic view, the comparative perspective, which is the greatest objective of the Theme Project, enabled us to observe the physical transformations of the West São Paulo State. It allows rethinking and equating consolidated elements by classic history or punctual jobs which even by a comparative bias could not enlighten dynamics in the formation of São Paulo territory in its historic, geographic and architectonic nature. Investigation has effectively a geo-historical approach, compared to those economic and political, outlining through four great themes in an jeux d’echelles, the three Braudelian times on the past reconstruction: “The permanence of agrarian structure on the formation of the urban context in the west São Paulo state”, “The circulation of hygienic precepts and technical innovations in the reconfiguration of the railway cities in the west São Paulo”, “Technical and theoretical knowledge on the city, between Europe and Americas: professionals, ideas and techniques in urban culture consolidation in the state of São Paulo” and “Political and cultural dimensions of knowledge spread in the cities of West São Paulo state: urban representations and propagation channels (Manual and magazines)”. Investigation, under this perspective, is analyzed by a logical web of the comparative history and directed to the cities related to the implantation and expansion of the railroad, which began in the 1860s and 1870s until the 1950s when roads emerged. This study aims to outline the historic evidence designed from the binomial coffee and railroad on the configuration and reconfiguration of the cities formed with the opening of Pioneer zones versus West of São Paulo state. The study of the expansion in São Paulo state in the 19 th and 20 th centuries have become an a model to discuss consolidated paradigms opposite the history myths of the modern urbanism, once history discussion on urbanism elected for ages the role of utopia and the great capitals of the 19th century as explanatory models to the constitution of the cities of São Paulo state. It provided camouflage or shading zones of differentiated patterns of urbanization and construction proper of pioneer zones related to railroad expansion.