Emílio Odebrecht, the Pioneer
One of the first to introduce the reinforced-concrete method in northeastern Brazil, Emílio Odebrecht also ushered in one of the Odebrecht Group’s historical hallmarks: pioneering new technologies

Edmundo’s eldest son and Emil’s grandson, Emílio Odebrecht was influenced during his childhood and youth by the family’s engineering tradition, both through his grandfather Emil and his uncle Adolfo, a civil engineer who graduated from the Rio de Janeiro Polytechnic in the early 19th century. Emílio accompanied his grandfather on his explorations and during his work for the telegraph company. Then, in 1914, at the age of 20, he, too, moved to Rio.

While there, he met up with his cousin Emílio Baumgart, a student at the Polytechnic who was working for a construction firm called Companhia Construtora em Cimento Armado. With his cousin’s help, Emílio Odebrecht joined the same firm, which was founded by Lambert Riedlinger, a German immigrant who arrived in Brazil in 1911 bearing an invaluable secret: the reinforced-concrete construction method, which was already advanced in Germany but little known in Brazil. Together with Baumgart and Riedlinger, Emílio would help usher in the “era of reinforced concrete” in Brazil, both in the construction industry and architecture in general.

When Emílio Odebrecht arrived in Rio de Janeiro he found a vibrant, cosmopolitan city like none other in Brazil. Between 1903 and 1906, Mayor Pereira Passos and his staff had not only rebuilt the downtown area of the city – which then had a population of about 700,000 inhabitants – but expanded its boundaries to the southern district, developing the area along the seashore. In nine months, they demolished over 600 buildings, most of them filthy, overcrowded tenements, to make way for automobiles, electric streetcars, elevators and movie theaters. Rio was becoming a modern city.

In the following decade, another Rio de Janeiro Mayor, Paulo de Frontin, would begin construction of more monumental buildings, which the local press dubbed the “twelve labors of Hercules.” The way had been paved for building an enormous metropolis in the near future, expanding outward from the city center (when Castelo Hill was leveled), widening Atlântica Avenue in Copacabana, and going on to Ipanema, Leblon and the entire beachfront strip and adjacent areas as far as Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon and the Gávea district.

The city had never seen such a construction boom. And the two Emílios, Odebrecht and Baumgart, witnessed that belle époque of numerous styles where eclecticism ruled supreme. “A fair of improvised architectural backdrops,” declared Lúcio Costa, one of the fathers of modern Brazilian architecture.

Lúcio Costa recognized that Brazilian civil engineering was on the verge of entering a new era in terms of methods for building architectural structures. He observed that “there are solutions that can satisfy the impassioned insistence of architects with a modern spirit, excited by the artistic possibilities inherent in the new reinforced-concrete method, whose immature formal beauty still escapes the perception of the great majority of engineers.”

Emílio Baumgart did not belong to that majority. Considered the creator of the Brazilian reinforced-concrete method, he is still admired for his bold, creative designs. Following the death of the engineer, whom Lúcio Costa had met at the National School of Fine Arts, the architect attested that “His ingenuity, intuition and practice of his craft, originally frowned upon by the academic thinking of scholars, led to his widespread and much deserved renown as the teacher of young engineers who specialized in the reinforced-concrete method.”

This new building technique dramatically changed the Brazilian civil construction scene, but it would be some time before it came into widespread use. At first, it was chiefly applied in the construction of what are called “works of art” in Brazil (bridges, overpasses, viaducts, etc.), particularly in São Paulo State. Studies and experimental projects built wholly or in part of reinforced concrete were carried out at the São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro polytechnics. The earliest known date when this method was actually used in building construction was 1908, when two facilities designed by Belgian architect Victor Dubugras were built: Mayrink Station in São Paulo and the Sorocabana Railway.

Because it shortened construction time, lowered costs, and offered greater durability and pleasing esthetic results, the reinforced-concrete method gained credibility in the 1910s. Held to be the first Brazilian contractor specialized in reinforced-concrete structures, Companhia Construtora em Cimento Armado was already active in the market by 1912. After making a modest start on private building projects, the firm started building major works in all fields of engineering and construction in several parts of the country. Its greatest rival, Construtora Cristiani & Nielsen, would only open a Brazilian branch in 1919.

The high point of the new method’s trial phase was the opening in the late 1920s of the massive headquarters of A Noite, a Rio newspaper, and the Martinelli Building in São Paulo, which introduced the skyscraper in Brazilian cities. Companhia Construtora em Cimento Armado erected historic buildings such as the Central, Glória and Copacabana Palace hotels, and the offices of the Companhia Antártica brewery in Rio de Janeiro.

It would not be long before other parts of Brazil discovered the advantages of reinforced concrete as well. In the Northeast, the growth of sugar exports resulted in an urban construction boom. The sharp rise in the number of “productive buildings” used by the import-export trade led to the expansion of ports, the construction of warehouses, silos and mills; improvements to historic urban areas; the expansion of the railway system; road works and bridge construction, which was an exceptionally fertile area for using reinforced concrete.

The city of Recife’s 180-meter-long Maurício de Nassau Bridge is a case in point: due to its length, it was record-breaking feat for Brazilian structural engineering at the time. Emílio Baumgart did the engineering calculations, and Lambert Riedlinger sent one of his best men to that Northeastern city to build the span in 1917: young Emílio Odebrecht, who had been mastering this new construction technique since 1914.

As a builder, Emílio Odebrecht confirmed Riedlinger’s highest expectations: the Maurício de Nassau Bridge became a milestone for Brazilian engineering. Two years later, in that same city, young Emílio decided to follow his main calling in life: that of being an entrepreneur/contractor. The Maurício de Nassau Bridge had also confirmed Emílio Baumgart’s talent as an engineer specialized in structural calculations. His classmates at the Rio Polytechnic expressed their admiration for what he had achieved when they graduated in 1918, by included a sketch of the bridge in the panel of photographs of graduating students.

For the other Emílio, Baumgart’s Odebrecht cousin, building that bridge was a watershed in his life. He had moved from Rio to Recife and built a project considered the most important reinforced-concrete structure in Brazil at that time. His intuition told him he was ready to go it alone and start his own business.

The Northeast was a good place for starting up new ventures, and the time was ripe. Recife was beginning to modernize its infrastructure to keep pace with the sugar booms in Pernambuco, Alagoas and Paraíba. There were all kinds of projects to build. Like Rio a few years earlier, the city needed sanitation systems, wider streets and a refurbished harbor. When World War I came to an end, a euphoric atmosphere took hold of the city.

The government authorized sugar mills to export their surplus production without permits, and Lloyds of Brazil decided to maintain its shipping fleet without raising costs. Compared with other towns and cities in the state of Pernambuco – which were more like villages – Recife shone like an urban oasis. It had nearly 240,000 inhabitants, and large mansions dotted the districts of Boa Vista, Casa Forte, Casa Amarela and Derby. On the other side of town, more than half the population lived in one-room shacks and shanties thatched with palm leaves, without running water or toilet facilities.

In 1918, Recife was one of the cities hit by the Spanish Flu, which decimated the populations of other port cities, like Rio. Recife demanded improvements. It had already proclaimed itself the “Brazilian Venice” because the Beberibe and Capiberibe rivers flowed through it, "embracing the city," and it was a place of "many colors, lean buildings and broad horizons,” according to the poet and engineer Joaquim Cardozo.

At that point, young Emílio, then 24, decided to marry Hertha Hinsch. He dreamed of having a family, kids and a career. And once again, his dreams came true. In 1918, Lambert Riedlinger assigned Isaac Magalhães de Albuquerque Gondim to manage his company’s Recife office. A member of an august Pernambuco family, he had recently graduated from college and already had practical knowledge because, as a student, he had worked the government in the department in charge of drawings, calculations, measurements, surveying and hydrographic soundings for the harbor. However, his main area of interest was researching and applying the reinforced-concrete method.

Emílio was thoroughly familiar with that technique. Moreover, he was seeking new challenges. Therefore, he teamed up with Isaac Gondim to “Carry out any kind of construction project as contractors and administrators, particularly specializing in reinforced concrete,” according to their advertisement. They founded Isaac Gondim & Odebrecht, the first Northeastern construction firm with expertise in that new technique. A branch office in Jaraguá, Alagoas, soon joined the company’s Recife headquarters on stately Imperador Street.

Recife was a place of “many colors, lean houses and broad horizons,” according to poet and engineer Joaquim Cardozo

“The first few years were hard, very hard indeed,” recalled Isaac Gondim in his book Vultos e Problemas do Recife (Issues and Problems of Recife). “The competition was intense and resources were scarce. But then the response came: our credit increased, our credibility grew and our business expanded. Consequently, the results rewarded our efforts.”

The sugar-growing areas needed dams, channels, reservoirs, and bridges for railways and roads. The contractor’s first jobs were relatively modest: mills, smokestacks, small bridges in rural Alagoas and the Fortaleza Flower Market. But then, bigger projects came along, such as the Buarque de Macedo, Afogados, Torre and Pina bridges and Derby Barracks, covering a 2,900 square-meter area, built with a concrete dome and some outbuildings.

The city was becoming more sophisticated, and the press approved. “In the last few city administrations, we have seen the miraculous way that the city has modernized,” reported Illustração Brasileira magazine in June 1924. “Magnificent buildings are being constructed. Finally, there is a tangible fever of change that is making the Brazilian Venice one of the most cultured and civilized centers in the nation.”

It seemed like Paradise. But like the Garden of Eden, there was a serpent in Recife. It struck when the sugar boom went bust. As quickly as they had gone up, export prices started to fall. Northeastern producers began selling most of their production in the domestic market. Brazil could only export sugar when there was an international shortage due to an outside cause that affected the normal behavior of the sugar market. War was one such cause. Sugar exports had quadrupled between 1914 (530,000 sacks) and 1918 (1.9 million sacks), but by 1924, those figures had fallen to pre-World War I levels. By 1925, exports had plummeted to the insignificant number of 50,000 sacks of sugar per year. Even worse, the growth of the highly competitive output of mills in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro began to threaten the interests and even the survival of the sugar economy in Pernambuco and the Northeast in general.

Isaac Gondim & Odebrecht experienced all this. In 1923, the company began building its last major project: the Recife offices of the London-based Pernambuco Tramways and Power Co. Ltd. According to a publication of the day, its new headquarters building in Recife was “majestic, built entirely in reinforced concrete, with sober lines, the necessary comfort and hygiene and a large office where nearly 500 employees worked.”

As soon as this project was completed, Isaac Gondim and Emílio Odebrecht dissolved their partnership. The sugar crisis was not the only reason. Gondim wanted to go in a different direction. He started a technical consulting firm, and a year and a half later he took a job in the administration department of Pernambuco Tramways and the Telephone Company of Pernambuco. But Emílio had other plans and a family to support. He wanted to keep working in the construction industry and instill a philosophy of work and persistence in his children, Norberto, Gerda and Erika. Gondim and Odebrecht retained fond memories of running a business together and remained good friends.

The same month and year that his partnership with Isaac Gondim came to an end – November 1923 – Emílio Odebrecht got together with Gustavo Adolpho Schaefer and Benedito Ximenes de Souza Neves to start a general contracting company specialized in reinforced concrete and hydraulic installations. With its headquarters in Recife, on Duque de Caxias Street, next to the Diário de Pernambuco newspaper building, Emílio Odebrecht & Cia. played an active role in projects built during Governor Sérgio Loreto’s administration, including construction of the Justice Department building. However, the sugar bubble had reached its peak, and soon began to shrink.

Although sugar prices were falling in Pernambuco, Bahia was enjoying a period of prosperity and growth, because its main exports, cocoa and tobacco, were fetching high prices on the world market. The Port of Salvador was the third largest in Brazil in terms of export volume.

In the 1920s, Bahia’s cocoa and tobacco fetched high prices on the international market

It was no coincidence that contracting companies like Companhia Construtora de Cimento Armado, Christiani & Nielsen and E. Kemnitz & Co. Ltda., Engenheiros e Construtores, already had branch offices in the city of Salvador, the state capital of Bahia. The competition would be fierce, but Emílio was attracted by the possibilities of the cocoa boom, and moved there in 1925. He had an excellent resume and an indispensable team of workers who were skilled in the craft of building with reinforced concrete. By that year, Emílio Odebrecht & Cia. had offices in Salvador, Blumenau, João Pessoa and Maceió. Gustavo Schaefer and Benedito Neves had left the partnership, and civil engineers José Cândido de Morais Nascimento and Armando Campelo took their place.

From then on, the lives of Emílio the builder and his wife and three small children would take a different turn. Salvador had a population of 250,000. The values and traditions of the elite, which was made up of large landowners, wholesalers, bankers, cocoa growers and the remnants of the sugar planting aristocracy, were very different from those which reigned in the Odebrecht household. The local aristocracy viewed manual labor as undignified, and even Engineering was considered a less prestigious profession than Medicine or Law.

But nobody in Emílio’s home thought or acted that way. His son, Norberto, was six when the family moved to Salvador. He was expected to do his chores – shining his own shoes, watering the garden, chopping and storing firewood, and putting away his own clothes – before he could go out and play. The family spoke to each other in German, and Norberto’s first primers were imported from Germany. A houseguest, Pastor Otto Arnold, who had recently arrived in Salvador, tutored the children in the mornings. Their lessons included calligraphy exercises using Gothic script.

A robust man with vast expertise, Emílio knew he would get ahead. He had built up plenty of capital from projects in Pernambuco and Alagoas, and already had contacts with his future clientele. He also had a major construction feat to recommend him: the bridge across the Itajaí-Açu River, which he built in Indaial, Santa Catarina, that same year (1925), was highly praised by Victor Konder, the Minister of Transportation and Public Works.

In Bahia, the second half of the 1920s was rightly called the “era of building ferment” (just to give an idea, in 1924 there were just 765 kilometers of roads in the state; four years later, that number had risen to 3,431 kilometers). In 1926, Emílio Odebrecht & Cia. built a bridge across the Cachoeira River in Itabuna, the first reinforced-concrete span in Bahia. However, the construction firm’s work was mainly concentrated in the state capital. The next project was the Magalhães Building, for Magalhães & Cia., in 1928, followed by the Health and Social Assistance Department building to replace a recently demolished colonial structure. Then, in 1929, the contractor built two outstanding projects, one in Salvador – the headquarters of the Cia. de Navegação Baiana shipping company – and the other near the border with Pernambuco formed by the São Francisco River – Petrolina Cathedral, a majestic church in the heart of the arid hinterland.

When World War II began, construction supplies became scarce and prices soared

The river was the only link between Petrolina, Pernambuco, and the state capital, and the closest town was Juazeiro, on the other side of the São Francisco, so transportation was done by barge. The bridge between the two towns would only be built much later, in 1946. It was hard to get cement, steel and other materials to the construction site, because they had to be transported in ox-carts on dirt roads, and on barges that crossed the São Francisco. Therefore, building the only Gothic-style church in the Brazilian interior required audacity and creativity.

Commissioned by the Bishopric, headed by Dom Malan, the cathedral has a 30-meter free span roof over the central nave. The townspeople thought it would take a miracle to keep it from collapsing. As a result, when the shoring came down and the structure began to crack due to the expansion and contraction of the materials, the faithful who flocked to witness the scene thought that miracle would not happen. They started shouting: “It’s going to fall!” But Dom Malan and Emílio Odebrecht were sitting right under the roof. Unconcerned, because they knew the structure was sound, they ate lunch in the nave and passed the time playing backgammon.

Although another economic crisis was looming, as industrial activity decreased in the Northeast and São Paulo’s share grew larger, Emílio Odebrecht & Cia. won several contracts at the end of the decade. They were not public works projects like the ones it had built between 1930 and 1932, but they were associated with vital public services like health and education, including São Jorge Hospital, Antônio Vieira College, a Jesuit secondary school, and outbuildings for the Liceu Salesiano, all built in Salvador.

Between 1933 and 1936, the contracting firm began building more and more projects in the interior of the state, particularly buildings associated with the tobacco and cocoa trades: the Ilhéus Business Association Building, when cocoa exports reached their height, and the Suerdieck cigar factory in Maragogipe. In the state capital, the company built the Behring chocolate factory, the Aliança and Santo Antônio movie theaters, and the dome and roof of the Benedictine Monastery, as well as the docks on Itaparica Island. Emílio Odebrecht & Cia. made its mark on Bahia by building numerous and important projects. By 1936, its partners were the builder himself and his wife, Hertha Odebrecht, and its headquarters was in Salvador, housed in the imposing A Tarde newspaper building.

In the second half of the 30s, Emílio Odebrecht carried on building socially significant projects such as the Federal University at Bahia’s teaching hospital (design and structures) and Santa Teresinha (now Otávio Mangabeira) Hospital. When the company built the Department of Public Safety building for the State of Bahia, a very special assistant was working at Emílio Odebrecht & Cia.: young Norberto, who was responsible for installing metal frames and starting to use the metalworking skills he had learned in his father’s workshops. During the same period, the contractor built another movie theater, the Excelsior, the headquarters of the Companhia de Seguros Aliança da Bahia insurance company in the lower part of Salvador, Sagrada Família Hospital and, in the early 40s, the 720-meter Mapele-Passagem railway bridge for Estrada de Ferro Leste Brasileiro.

Then World War II began, and imported construction materials became scarce. The prices of iron, cement, porcelain fixtures and reinforcing steel shot through the roof. But construction contracts were etched in stone and their prices could not be raised. As a result, several construction firms had to close their doors, under pressure from their creditors. It was no different for Emílio Odebrecht, who decided to retire, and returned to Santa Catarina in 1941. In the early 1940s, when he was still a college student, it was young Norberto Odebrecht who carried on building his father’s projects. By the time he graduated from the Federal University at Bahia Polytechnic in 1943 with a degree in civil engineering, all of Emílio Odebrecht & Cia.’s projects had been completed.

Emílio returned to Bahia in the 1950s at Norberto’s invitation to consult for his son’s firm. Once again he spent his time at the jobsites, sharing his know-how with supervisors and apprentices and doing structural calculations for several projects. It could not have been otherwise. All his life, he had sought to be a teacher, making the education of his assistants his main concern as an entrepreneur. “Seu Emílio” as he was known, spent his evenings at home with young engineers, supervisors and workers, talking, teaching and answering their questions. By the time he died in 1962 at the age of 68, all the seeds he had planted at home and at work were bearing fruit.

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