The present study discusses the role of illustrated magazines in the process of building the aspiration to the urban ethos, with the aim of understanding how these printed media expressed and how they shaped a new carioca society in the early years of the 20th century. Through the analysis of advertisements and chronicles, documentary supports traditionally studied at the time, we seek to understand how society assimilated the modernization of the Federal Capital, what effects produced the reforms of sidewalks and avenues, new parks and gardens, in addition to the interaction with cars, electric trams, heavy machinery, and modernisms that went beyond those of an urban nature, such as the customs of the inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro and the very image to be built of the country. For the study, all editions of the six years of publication of the magazine Kósmos (from 1904 to 1909) were analyzed, pointing out events of the time, sometimes making use of the intertextual comparison of this periodical with the narrative of other publications, such as Revista da Semana. and FonFon. The hypothesis is that, as windows for the understanding of modern culture, the daily flagrants of the chronicles and advertising brought more than revelations of how the reconfiguration of public space took place, the new ways of seeing and being in the relationship with modernity. With their own symbologies, they helped in the aspiration and construction of a new moral value, their character and a new style of life.