Bruno Carvalho

An urbanist’s lifelong study of the “rhythm of cities,” from Rio to Cambridge 

Bruno Carvalho stands in front of a city background

Bruno Carvalho

Photograph by Jim Harrison

As a child, urbanist Bruno Carvalho explored his native Rio de Janeiro in search of four things: soccer, books, films, and music. The city bus took Carvalho, now a professor of romance languages and literatures and co-director of the Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative, everywhere he needed to go: to empty fields, sandy beaches, and the Maracanã Stadium for soccer; to Rio’s numerous used bookstores, where he got an “early education in the canon of Brazilian poetry”; and to the “serendipitous social spaces” of video rental stores and record shops. “I sort of became an urbanist without realizing it, learning the rhythms of cities,” he says. Walking the streets of Rio, he would recognize workers in stores and restaurants and know when each profession got off work. The study of cities came into focus for him at Dartmouth College, where he met his architect wife. They began “building-watching” for fun. “We joined forces,” he says, combining her design knowledge with his urban-planning expertise to “try to figure out” new cities: “Every building is a puzzle for us.” Like his hometown of Rio, bordered by rainforest, Carvalho’s recent work lies at the intersection of the urban and the environmental—a natural launching point for his New York Times op-eds denouncing deforestation of the Amazon. Now, when not chasing his three-year-old daughter or putting her to sleep with João Gilberto bossa nova records, he’s working on a book about how people have imagined urban futures since the 1790s. The project requires the kind of synthesis inherent to urban studies (and one he finds continually inspiring), unifying his disparate interests like music, film, and the environment. “They all come together in the city,” he says. “They came together in the city for me as a child, and they still do today.”

Read more articles by Nancy Walecki

You might also like

Is the Constitution Broken?

Harvard legal scholars debate the state of our founding national document.

Harvard Panel Debunks the Population Implosion Myth

Public health professors parse the evidence surrounding falling U.S. birth rates.

How Maga Went Mainstream at Harvard

Trump, TikTok, and the pandemic are reshaping Gen Z politics.

Most popular

Two Years of Doxxing at Harvard

What happens when students are publicly named and shamed for their views?

Trump Says a Deal with Harvard Is Close

Administration squeezes Harvard finances, and a federal judge blasts deportation efforts as unconstitutional.

Trump Administration Unveils New Attacks on Harvard

Government tightens financial oversight of Harvard, threatens to pull student aid.

Explore More From Current Issue

Vivian W. Rong sitting on bench outdoors.

Highlighting Harvard Magazine’s Fellows

The 2025-2026 Ledecky and Summer Undergraduate Fellows

Johnston Gate

Your Views on Harvard’s Standoff, Antisemitism, and More

Readers comment on the controversial July-August cover, authoritarianism, and scientific research.

Illustration of college students running under a large red "MAGA" hat while others look on with some skeptisim.

How Maga Went Mainstream at Harvard

Trump, TikTok, and the pandemic are reshaping Gen Z politics.