The article, based on a research carried out in the Brazilian city of Fortaleza, is aimed at reflecting over the distinct connections established between the city and its past. The discourses about the urbe are circumstanced to different contexts and speakers. Therefore, it focuses on the city as thought of by novelists, historians, politicians and urban planning professionals. The recent changes that the city has undergone entail discourses towards communication between past and present, presenting both complaints about disfiguration of urban space and the search for recomposing the city's "history", though a policy of preserving what is considered as heritage. Nowadays, the increasing encouragement to tourism in Fortaleza has been creating a new discourse on exporting images to be spread and absorbed for consumption. The renovation of the city center, of old buildings and leisure areas responds to such flow of transformation and preservation that characterizes not only Fortaleza, but also expressing a movement that takes place in other Brazilian cities.
city; time and space; discourse; patrimony; symbolic dispute