Legislation and occupation of Belo Horizonte: Landscape of Praça da Liberdade

More than 80% of the world’s population lives in cities, so these centres need to be designed and their growth planned and controlled. This work studies the specific legislation for land use and compiles and analyses the laws, decrees and ordinances that constitute the set of instruments for building the city and establish the specific urban parameters for the municipality of Belo Horizonte. The aim is to verify the changes that have taken place in the landscape of Praça da Liberdade, a space of political, administrative, economic, cultural and heritage relevance, and its immediate surroundings - the political and administrative centre from which decisions are made for the people of Minas Gerais - since the city’s implementation in 1897 to 2010, in order to highlight the relevance of legislation on the occupation and configuration of the urban landscape and on the quality of public and private spaces. Finally, the legislation of Belo Horizonte is analysed, especially the Land Use and Occupancy Laws and Building Codes, in order to verify what happened to the occupation of Praça da Liberdade and its landscape when economic and political forces acted upon this space.