He was an architect and urban planner, three times mayor of Curitiba, and two times governor of Paraná. Death was confirmed on Thursday (27) by complications from chronic kidney disease.
Jaime Lerner, former governor of Paraná, died on Thursday (27) at the age of 83. A trained architect, he was mayor of Curitiba three times and became internationally known for the implementation of the integrated system of public transport in the capital of Paraná, in the 1970s.
He had been hospitalized since May 21 at Hospital Universitário Evangélico Mackenzie, in Curitiba, after presenting a fever. According to the hospital, death was due to complications from chronic kidney disease.
Lerner had been undergoing hemodialysis for some time and, before that, he was hospitalized, according to the former chief of staff of the politician, Gerson Guelmann.
Waiting and burial will be restricted by isolation measures.
Jaime Lerner was born on December 17, 1937, in Curitiba. He was mayor of the city in three terms, from 1971 to 1974, from 1979 to 1983 and from 1989 to 1992, and governor of Paraná twice, from 1995 to 1998 and 1999 to 2002.
Lerner graduated in architecture in 1964 from the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR) and worked at the Institute for Research and Urban Planning in Curitiba (Ippuc) since its creation in 1965.
In 2002, he was elected president of the International Union of Architects (UIA). He was also the founder of the Jaime Lerner Institute, a non-profit organization.
During his life, the politician married Fani Lerner and had two daughters: Andrea and Ilana. The wife died in May 2009, at the age of 63.
In October 2020, Jaime Lerner was admitted after undergoing appendicitis surgery.
In March of this year, he tested positive for the new coronavirus. At the time, Lerner had already taken both doses of the vaccine, however, he was not yet in the immunity period.
Mayor
In the administration of the capital, Lerner became internationally known for the urban planning and integrated transport project in Curitiba.
The main legacy was the adoption of the BRT transport system, which installed exclusive channels for buses and terminals integrated by the city in 1974. In the following years, the Curitiba example was replicated in several cities around the world.
Governor
At the head of the state government, Lerner designed the plan for the Integration Ring, which granted the main highways in the state to private companies so that the stretches could be reformed.
Lerner’s terms were also marked by the privatization of Banestado and the attempt to sell Companhia Paranaense de Energia (Copel), which ended up not being privatized due to a lack of buyers.
During his tenure, the state also became a hub for the auto industry, when multinational automakers installed themselves in the state through tax incentives and loans granted by the state government to companies.
In 2011, he was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for making a contractual amendment not provided for in the original bidding that extended the concession of BR-476 and PR-427. He was never arrested, and the sentence was converted into a fine.
In 2013, he was ordered to pay a fine for administrative misconduct in a lawsuit over irregular payment of damages to owners of expropriated areas in Cascavel, in the west of the state.
Influence
Lerner had six books published, most of them dealing with urban planning.
Lerner received international awards and titles, with emphasis on the United Nations Maximum Prize for the Environment, in 1990, and Unicef Child and Peace, in 1996.
In 2010, he was listed by the American magazine Time as one of the 25 most influential thinkers in the world and received the L’Académie D’Architecture Urbanism Medal in France.
In the periods he did not hold public office, Jaime Lerner developed urban plans for several cities in Brazil, such as Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Recife, Salvador, Aracaju, Natal, Goiânia, Campo Grande and Niterói.
During his career, he won several architecture awards and gave important international conferences.
In the field of education, Jaime Lerner was a professor at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at the Federal University of Paraná, and a visiting professor and lecturer at American universities in Berkeley (California), Cincinnati, Columbia (NY), and at the Japanese university in Osaka.
In 2013, he received the Comenda Barão do Serro Azul from the Paraná Commercial Association (ACP), as a great personality from Paraná and a world-renowned urban planner.
Amelia Warner
Amelia Warner writes all the Latest Articles. She mostly covers Entertainment topics, but at times loves to write about movie reviews as well.
