Signage regulation: an overview behind the production of chaotic commercial landscapes in Brazil

As second skin to buildings (Ashihara, 1983), commercial signs have great impact in the perceived urban landscape (Nasar, 1988; 1997); technology permits increase in size and diversity and the challenge is how to deal with chaos and order in such landscapes. In this sense, the aim of this paper is to discuss the production of commercial landscapes with visual overload in Brazil, bringing the view of those who produce and the role of signage regulation. As commercial landscapes, we consider its visual features which involve not only signs (ads, billboards), but also buildings, urban furniture, vegetation and everything that takes part of these particular settings visually perceived. Such elements, together with its maintenance and cleanness have a huge impact in landscape quality. To talk about these chaotic settings, we take the city of Sao Paulo, in Brazil, as a case study to discuss what is behind its production. This paper is based on qualitative study, in which, in-deep interviews were applied, to specialists and users involved in different areas of commercial landscape production, and perception. When commercial intentions are behind activities in urban space every square meter in landscape is valuable and disputed. It was observed that, not only the absence of law create conditions to chaotic landscapes, but also inconsistent ones are instruments to create these settings. These chaotic landscapes can certainly be intentionally created by law; however, when it is not desired, the presence of state in inspection and punishment is important to keep its coherence and legibility.