Orelhão, officially Telefone de Uso Público is the name given to the protector for public telephones designed by Chinese Brazilian architect and designer Chu Ming Silveira. It was created on 4 April 1972 and it was initially used in the cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Later, they became present everywhere in Brazil, as well as in other Latin American countries such as Cuba, Peru, Colombia and Paraguay, in African countries like Angola and Mozambique, in China, and in other parts of the world.
Background The installation of the first public payphones in Brazil dates from the 1920s, when the population of the country at that time was around 30.6 million inhabitants. Equipped with a token box and adapted to a common device, these semi-public telephones were found in commercial establishments that signed a contract with Companhia Telefônica Brasileira (Brazilian Telephone Company), a company that was then responsible for telephone services in the states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais. Actual public payphones only appeared on Brazilian streets in mid-1971, when more than 93 million people were living in the country and mobile phones had not been created yet. The first cell phone would only be released two years later, being available to very few people. Out of the almost 100 million inhabitants of Brazil, 52 million lived in urban areas, according to IBGE data. In many places, due to the noise, listening and being heard from a public phone installed in the middle of the street was difficult. Attempting to solve the issue, CTB developed circular fiberglass and acrylic cabins and, to test the novelty, installed 13 of them in the city of São Paulo. The result did not please the company, that detected an inadequate use of the equipment, a high rate of vandalism, and concluded that the spacious cabin, besides being uncomfortable, ended up bothering the passersby, obstructing the narrow sidewalks. Facing this disappointing diagnosis, architect Chu Ming Silveira went on to work on the project that would result in one of the greatest icons of Brazilian design. The challenge was not small, as can be concluded from the detailed descriptive memo prepared by Chu Ming, who at that time headed the projects section of the Engineering Department of the Brazilian Telephony Company. Design and acoustics suited to Brazilian climatic conditions were at the root of the problem and the solution proposed by Chu Ming would eventually meet, with great success, the whole series of needs she had listed:
Phone protection. User protection. Low manufacturing and maintenance cost. Low cost and simplicity of installation. Durability and resistance to weather, and wear and tear. Flexibility to adjust to areas of different concentrations. Good acoustics. Good aesthetics. Attractiveness to the public. Operational simplicity. Possibility of uninterrupted use. Good image of service to the public. Institution of one more element in the urban landscape. Ergonometrical satisfaction of Brazilian urban folk's fashion.
Development
To achieve a cabin made of fiberglass, which should be strong, very light, resistant to sun, rain and fire and, according to newspapers of the time, "cheap", Chu Ming Silveira started with an egg shape; according to her, it is "the best acoustic form". The curvature of the dome offered an acoustic protection of 70 to 90 decibels, provided the user was under it. Most of the outside noise reaching the "shield" was reflected out, the remainder converging to the center of the radius of curvature, located well below the ear of the average user, in order to minimize interference in communication. Launched in 1972, the new booth soon started being incorporated into Brazilian landscapes. Although technically called "Chu II" by CTB and later immortalized as "orelhão," it gained a number of curious nicknames, such as "tulip" and "astronaut's helmet". The press adopted "tulip," which referred to the format of the set of 2 or 3 booths attached to the ground by an iron pipe through which the wires ran. The orange and blue "tulips" were equipped with red telephones produced in the Japanese city of Osaka, popularly called "reds" or "tamurinhas". For indoor environments, such as commercial and public offices, Chu Ming developed, before the orelhão, the "Chu I" or orelhinha ("small ear"), which was smaller and had an orange acrylic structure. It could be installed on a wall or adapted to different supports, at a height defined as the average of Brazilian men. The first ones were tested in mid-1971, in the lobby of CBT's headquarters building, at Rua 7 de Abril, central region of São Paulo. On 20 January, the day of its patron saint Saint Sebastian, the city of Rio de Janeiro received the first Orelhões of the Brazilian Telephone Company. The newspaper O Diário de São Paulo reported on the anniversary of the city of São Paulo, on 25 January, to announce the arrival of the new phones on the streets of the city:
"... And on this day, São Paulo gets a gift from the Brazilian Telephone Company: 170 telephone booths of a new model, christened "tulip" by its creator, the Chinese architect Chu Ming." Keeping the commemorative tone, the text highlighted the quality of the design of said "tulips", "in which the technique matches environmental beauty." According to the CTB, there were in São Paulo about 4,000 public telephones then, while the ideal number to meet the demand would be 22,500. The success of orelhão could be verified not only by the sympathy with which the population received it, but also by the increase of calls made from public telephones. In March 1972, CTB estimated that the installation of the new equipment would cause a 12% increase in the number of average daily calls.
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