Brazil builds… again
Yesterday (April 21, 2010), Brazilian architecture was showcased in New York at Columbia’s GSAPP under the title: YOUNG PRACTICS IN BRAZIL moderated by Angelo Bucci. In his introduction, Bucci loosely revived the concept of “the generation” to frame the group of young architects presented at Wood auditorium. He did so however, without a clear discourse of who or what is this “generation” revolting, reacting or responding against. The forces that bring this group of architects together, were left for us to guess. The overall lackadaisical manner with which Bucci introduced the evening left it rather limp, with little possibility for the audience to engage in the many difficult questions that this “new” architecture of “Brazil” raises. I venture some:
1. The shadow of Brazil’s rich modernist past was the elephant in the room. Although all young architects develop different tactics dealing with it, these all felt immature and young indeed. Celio Deniz/DDG Arquitetura ’s Cruzeiro School directly acknowledged the famed Ministry of Education (among other examples), in his incorporation of passive environmental control systems (brise-soleil); on the green-surfaced roofs of the school however, he surprisingly failed or chose not to connect them to the MES. Eduardo [Rocha] Ferroni/H+F Arquitetos positioned his practice on the rich urbanity produced by the series of commercial galleries that link public spaces in the center of São Paulo. Although both positions were interesting, they were undeveloped. Presenting the Uniao de Vilanova III e IV schools, Ferroni revived the social position of architecture which figures like Affonso Reidy defended so long ago. The point was not lost to Kenneth Frampton who praised Ferroni on this; however, it is not clear how simply working for the government – producing schools, advances Reidy’s clear and powerful strategies as deployed in Pedregulho housing project.
2. The organizational structure of the architectural offices was another theme, presented more like laboratories where experiments are conducted. Complete with meeting rooms that serve as lecture halls, galleries, etc., for “public” interactions, these offices serve for multiple functions. This public and multifunctional space was something that although put on the table, remained vague, imprecise and in my opinion with a false yet deadly allure. It is curious that every single presenter started by describing their office and how they work. Bruno Campos/BCMF Arquitetos, exulted the value of a multi-prong practice with landscape and graphic designers, and of having a gallery for “public events;” exactly what he meant by “public” is not clear. In this respect Ferroni, who works within a collective called Arquitetos Cooperantes offered me the most to wonder about.
3. The overall pragmatic description of the buildings deployed by all presenters, points to another modernist inheritance: its artistic/formal inheritance. Although Bruno Campos/BCMF Arquitetos was most active in ignoring Brazil’s modernist past, his high aesthetic forms (quite elegant and sophisticated) reveal a minimalism with strong ties with Brazilian modernism. I venture a radical comparison with Niemeyer. Campo’s work, although absent of sensual forms, follows Niemeyer’s concentration of symbolic power on gestural moves. This type of pressure-cooker present in Niemeyer’s best work, is there in Campo’s constrained geometric minimalism. Niemeyersque ties are revealed by an overworked absence of details that necessitates object buildings (the H30 Park is a notable exception) contemplated at a distance, and an interest in structural gymnastics. The scale and limits of production governs them all, even today.
4. Overlapping this formal modernist inheritance, is a deadly modernization legacy: the complete liquidation of architectural culture performed by the military dictatorship. Acknowledge by Bucci in an all too quick remark as if not to forget that Brazil does have a dark history, today happily absent from the many luminous renderings of incredibly generic Olympic projects by Bruno Campos/BCMF Arquitetos, or Celio Deniz/DDG Arquitetura’s most recent project for a hotel/convention center for Rio, this void resonated deeply in the pragmatic and pedestrian way in which all the architects described most their projects.
5. But the most devastating inheritance that the evening showcased, was the replication of “Brazilian Architecture,” as presented in 1943, in New York. This is no returned of the repressed since it is the repressed that consistently fails to erupt. If we are to believe the organizers of YOUNG PRACTICS IN BRAZIL , “Brazil” continues to be:
a. just a couple of cities, in fact, the same cities. I wonder if there is another way to present “Brazilian” architecture other that the already over-elaborated centers, and why Brazilian architecture has failed (has it? ) to project itself outside its cities, and onto the massive physical organization of the Amazonian territories, just to name a very present and on going theme.
b. When it comes to architecture, Brazil continues to be white. Brazilian architects continue to be white; and although I understand the the classification of race does not follow US categories, all these architects were white indeed, as white as you can get.
c. Architectural production in Brazil continues to be male dominated.
So if we are to guess what brings these architects together, what were the criteria used to bring them to Columbia to present their work, and what characterizes them as a “generation,” I venture to say that they had to be: young, white, male, and urban. Such is this “new generation!”
Modernism’s dreams remain; the legacy of modernization, continues. What I saw yesterday were incipient architectural practices; full of promise, but somewhat void of questions. Incipient not in the amount of work built and produced, but in their position with respect to architecture and specially with respect to Brazil’s modern legacy, its lights and shadows. Caution seems to be the modus operandi, in a what could be interpreted as a desperate attempt to join the circuit of global architectural images.
latin american architecture at MoMA
In 2007, as part of a class on museum exhibitions under Barry Bergdoll (Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at MoMA), I made a presentation on the interest that MoMA’s Architecture and Design Department had had on Latin American architecture. Strangely enough, this got picked up by the New York Times. Although I agree that lack of knowledge about the architecture of the region continues to be “a problem for the architecture department,” I was quoting Janet Henrich, acting curator of Architecture in the late 1930s and early 1940s. In 1942 Henrich was involved in what a year later would become the famed Brazil Builds. Back then Europe seemed closer, even during the war:
I certainly think a good South American show could be very popular, but most of the discussion I have heard about such shows during the last year has been based on a slight misconception. Our STOCKHOLM BUILDS has been used as an example of how a South American show could be done. Actually although GEKS [Kidder-Smith] is an architect, he did not have a great deal of the information needed to put the show together in an interesting fashion. Betty Mock did a great deal of research and fortunately it was possible for research on Stockholm and Swedish building to be done here –which would not be true, I am afraid, in the case of South America which is very badly documented.
Janet Henrich, 1942
I address MoMA’s relationship to Latin American architecture in part of my dissertation. I gave an updated version of this presentation in Montevideo, Uruguay, at the Universidad de La República, in Dec. 2009.
Vilamajó_Facultad de Ingeniería