Dyonelio Machado, author of the novel "Os Ratos", stands out for having broken with the structures of the gaucho literature and abandoned the myth of the hero on horseback to highlight the urban essence of the gaucho capital. The aim of the paper is to discuss the urban descriptions found in "Os Ratos", based on the method of the new Cultural History whose principles, highlight the arguments stating that the world is only perceived as representation through a structure of culturally constructed conventions, schemes and stereotypes. The real will not cease to be real, because it is exactly the fictionality that guarantees identity to social relations, configuring the real and the imaginary not as opposite things, but as indispensable complements to the form of existence of social life.Due to his sensitive vision, several intrinsic aspects of the urban environment, which are intertwined in the transformation and modernization of the city of Porto Alegre, appear in Dyonelio Machado's novel.