Arquitetura como Compromisso Civil: Projeto Modernista de Lucio Costa para o Brasil (original) (raw)

Interpreting the historiography of Modern Brazilian Architecture: Brasília and monographs between 1959 and 1973

DOCOMOMO Magazine, 2018

Interpretando a historiografia da Arquitetura Moderna Brasileira: Brasília e monografias entre 1959 e 1973 Interpretando la historiografía de la Arquitectura Moderna Brasileña: Brasilia y monografías entre 1959 y 1973 Abstract Brasília is certainly one of the great urban and architectural events of the entire twentieth century and, despite the importance that the city has in the history of modern architecture, little is known of the historio-graphical representations initially developed about the new capital. It is possible to affirm that most of the works elaborated on Brasilia have only been written more recently, but it would be a mistake to ignore a series of books published in the previous decades. The oldest publications present particularized readings, performed by different authors and in different stages of consolidation of the city: the narratives and representations range from a bandeirista spirit to readings of a 'real' city, which began to show signs of strong peripheral expansion and reproduction of the coun-try's social inequalities. This article intends to present a reading of the publications-made between the years of 1959 and 1973 2-that have Brasilia as object of analysis, seeking an interpretation of the presented historiography and verifying possible recurrences and influences. Thinking about the possibility of a periodi-zation the text was divided into three 'acts' that, from the author's observations, can indicate specific moments of the historiography of the city. Keywords: Architecture historiography; Modern architecture in Brazil; Brasília. Resumo Brasília é certamente um dos grandes aconteci-mentos urbanos e arquitetônicos de todo o século XX e, apesar da importância que a cidade tem na história da arquitetura moderna, pouco se sabe das representações historiográficas inicialmente desen-volvidas sobre a nova capital. É possível afirmar que a maioria dos trabalhos elaborados sobre Brasília tenham sido escrito apenas mais recentemente, mas seria um erro ignorar uma série de livros publicados nas décadas anteriores. As publicações mais antigas apresentam leituras particulares, realizadas por di-ferentes autores e em diferentes estágios de consoli-dação da cidade: as narrativas e representações vão de um espírito bandeirista a leituras de uma cidade 'real', que começava a apresentar sinais de forte ex-pansão periférica e reprodução das desigualdades sociais do país. Este artigo pretende apresentar uma leitura das publicações-feitas entre 1959 e 1973 2-que tiveram Brasília como objeto de análise, bus-cando uma interpretação historiográfica e verifican-do possíveis recorrências e influências. Pensando uma periodização possível, o texto foi dividido em três 'atos' que podem indicar momentos específicos da historiografia da cidade. Palavras-chave: Historiografia da arquitetura, Ar-quitetura moderna no Brasil; Brasília. Resumen Brasilia es ciertamente uno de los grandes aconte-cimientos urbanos y arquitectónicos de todo el siglo XX y, pese a la importancia que la ciudad tiene en la historia de la arquitectura moderna, poco se sabe de las representaciones historiográficas inicialmente desarrolladas sobre la nueva capital. Es posible afir-mar que la mayoría de los trabajos elaborados sobre Brasilia han sido escritos apenas más recientemente, pero sería un error ignorar una serie de libros publi-cados en las décadas anteriores. Las publicaciones más antiguas presentan lecturas particulares, reali-zadas por diferentes autores y en diferentes etapas de consolidación de la ciudad: las narrativas y repre-sentaciones van de un espíritu "bandeirista" a lectu-ras de una ciudad 'real', que comenzaba a presentar señales de fuerte expansión periférico y reproducción de las desigualdades sociales del país. Este artículo pretende presentar una lectura de las publicaciones-hechas entre 1959 y 19732-que tuvieron Brasilia como objeto de análisis, buscando una interpreta-ción historiográfica y averiguando las posibles re-currencias e influencias. Pensando una periodización posible, el texto fue dividido en tres 'actos' que pue-den indicar momentos específicos de la historiografía de la ciudad. Palabras clave: historiografía de la arquitectura, arquitectura moderna en Brasil; Brasilia.

THE ROOTS OF BRAZILIAN MODERN ARCHITECTURE

REGIONALISM, NATIONALISM & MODERN ARCHITECTURE international conference Conference proceedings October 25-27, 2018 CEAA | Centro de Estudos Arnaldo Araújo Escola Superior Artística do Porto Portugal, Edited by Jorge Cunha Pimentel Alexandra Trevisan Alexandra Cardoso

In 1927, architect Gregory Warchavchik built the first modernist house in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo. The synthesis of local and international, laid down in the works of Warchavchik at the turn of the 20's and 30's, developed into a national version of modernist architecture. The article analyzes the architect’s approach in combining worldwide modernist features and national elements, which appears to be in tune with the ideas of Oswald de Andrade laid out in his Cannibal Manifesto, laying a foundation for the development of brazilianness in architecture. Pp.465-473

“Palmeiras and Pilotis: Promoting Brazil with Modern Architecture.”

Third Text, 2012

In the 1950s, modern architecture became one of the most compelling and widely circulated, if controversial, symbols of industrial and cultural progress in Brazil. Such architects as Oscar Niemeyer and Affonso Reidy were both celebrated and reviled by specialists in the developed world for the liberties they took reconfiguring European architectural conventions for their tropical conditions. Two particular cases emanating from Rio de Janeiro – Reidy’s design for the Museu de Arte Moderna and Niemeyer’s journal Módulo – highlight how Brazilians engaged with this polemical discourse and disseminated their works of tropical modernism to foreign audiences. Through these and other examples, this article also points to ways in which Brazilians were complicit in the exoticization of their own country, deploying rhetoric about the tropics when it was advantageous and condemning it when it was not.

MODERN IN CRISIS: a reflection on modernist architecture, national identity, and Building sites in Brasília

14th Docomomo Brazil Seminar, 2022

This paper was based on the questionings developed during the master's final thesis "Architecture in span-Internship at Casa da Arquitectura (Matosinhos)", presented in 2019 to obtain a master's degree in Art History, Heritage, and Visual Culture at the Faculty of Arts of University of Porto. This study proposes a reflection about the production model of Brazilian modernist architecture, which was guided by both the ideal of modernization and a search for national identity. Therefore, Brasília was chosen as the case study for this research due to its symbolism as the greatest achievement of the modern movement and the important influence of the Brazilian State on its completion. The methodology combined a diversified bibliography in order to discuss the construction of nationhood, as well as the relationship between architecture and the Brazilian State. Accordingly, this study also addressed the working conditions faced by the workers by relating them to the constructive system employed in Brasília's construction, which used concrete as its main component.

Brasilidade in built form: tracing national identity in modernist architecture in Brazil, 1922–1968

2020

The conceptual framework of Brazilian national identity in built form changed drastically between the 1930s and the 1960s, from the Baroque of colonial-era Brazil to the improvised constructions of the poor. The advocates of these architectural imaginaries were not suggesting that these styles be copied. Instead, they used them as a type of hermeneutic for explicating how Modernism should be deployed in order for it to be authentically Brazilian. The transition from the colonial model to an aesthetics of poverty was a result of a confluence of factors. These included the country’s relatively new struggle to define itself away from Portugal; the arrival of new European immigrants; growing anxiety about cultural colonization by the United States; unstable economic and political circumstances; and the questioning of the nation’s myth of racial democracy. This dissertation traces the attribution of Brasilidade, i.e., Brazilian-ness, to various architectural forms between 1922, the year ...

Modernity and Continuity: Alternatives to Instant Tradition in Contemporary Brazilian Architecture

At the end of the 1970s, Critical Regionalism questioned the homogenization of architecture brought by modernism. The movement claimed a necessity for the mediation between ‘universal civilization’ and ‘local culture’, establishing the possibility for a meaningful yet progressive architecture to take form. In the face of a visible standardization of architecture throughout the globe, as portrayed by the reckless replication of design solutions disregarding local environmental and social conditions, the idea of Critical Regionalism seems relevant. However, the critical part of this discourse must be reframed in order to release the ‘local’ from its aesthetic form, establishing new possibilities for architecture to address its context in innovative ways. This paper examines examples of both purely aesthetic regionalism and creative solutions for addressing local issues. The study focuses on both past and contemporary Brazilian architectural solutions. Brazil currently faces a continuous increase in its construction market, but it is in past solutions that the most creative locally inspired architecture can be found. Through the examination of such examples, the paper will explore both the problems and potentials of a critical and regionalist Brazilian architecture.

MODERNISM AND CLASSICISM IN BRAZIL Foundational myths and other stories

The Routledge handbook on the reception of classical architecture, 2020

By most measures, the classical tradition is incipient in Brazil. The Renaissance barely made a dent in the forts and small settlements built by the Portuguese in the early colonial period. The baroque was more far-reaching, spanning most of the colonial era and used in urban churches and Jesuit missions; but even though it shaped entire urban ensembles in the prosperous mining region of Minas Gerais, it never dominated the built landscape of the country as a whole. 1 The neoclassical, brought by a French cultural mission in the early nineteenth century, gave the sheen of decorum to institutional buildings and urban plans, but it was neither widespread nor embraced as a national style. 2 It became a historicist, sometimes eclectic, academicism in the turn of the twentieth century, and its claims to representing the official image of Brazil were hotly contested, first by neo-colonialists and then by modernists. 3 However broadly one defines it, and with the exception of the baroque, the classical tradition is not strong in Brazilian architecture. Yet the classical tradition has loomed large in Brazilian architectural discourse-in debates, theories, critical assessments and historiographical accounts-and perhaps most strikingly, the long shadows of the classical tradition are not cast over the periods usually associated with classi-cism and its revivals, but rather over twentieth-century modernism. Architects, theorists and historians have entangled modernism with the classical tradition in different ways, from the 1930s foundational myth that Brazilian modernism descends from the Brazilian baroque, to recent revisionist readings that uncover Greek, Roman and neoclassical influences beneath the smooth surfaces of mid-century buildings. This chapter is less concerned with tracking down these influences in and of themselves, than with following the discursive constructions of Brazilian architects and theorists as they engaged or discarded historical periods. Their discursive constructions were not separate from built architecture; both fields informed and propped each other up. The classical tradition served proselytising and interpretive purposes in the self-understanding of Brazilian modernism. Unlike Europeans, Brazilian modernists did not feel compelled to antagonise all of history, and had a more flexible relationship with the past. 4 Brazilian cities were new, and newly growing; compared to their European counterparts, Brazilian architects had much more of a tabula rasa, with more room to build and more freedom to create. There was also a symbolic tabula rasa: the connotations of historical styles were more fluid in Brazil. In Europe, it

Questions on space and intersections in the historiography of modern Brazilian architecture

ABE Journal [En ligne], 7|2015, URL: http://abe.revues.org/2610; DOI: 10.4000/abe.2610 , 2015

The present text proposes a spatial approach to a particular historiographical analysis: the deconstruction of the Brazilian modern architecture narrative as advanced by its main proponent architect Lucio Costa. The analysis is advanced from three different perspectives. The first concerns the place from within the Brazilian modern architecture narrative evolved or the position occupied by Lucio Costa during the 1930s, a period of major cultural unrest under the Estado Novo dictatorship (1937-1945). The second perspective invoked the field of cultural geography scrutinizing Costa’s understanding of the concept of history and the way he operated the notions of transferences, exchanges, and dialogues either in the contemporaneous cultural space or between the past and the historical present. Costa’s commitments to the assertion of a national identity emerge vis a vis the supranational character of American scholars George Kubler and Robert Chester Smith’s formulations on Latin American art and architecture. The third and last perspective introduces the idea of cultural dialogue, following the tradition of the spatial theoretical formulations of Georg Simmel and Martin Buber in the first quarter of the 20th century.