The first major retrospective to emerge from the archive of Paulo Mendes da Rocha, shining important new light on his work One of the most acclaimed architects working in Brazil since the mid-twentieth century, Paulo Mendes da Rocha (1928-2021) began building in the 1950s, championing an approach often associated with "Brutalism" but expanding well beyond it. He is widely recognized for having transformed the urban imprint of São Paulo. His best-known buildings include the Brazilian Museum of Sculpture, remarkable for its engagement with the site and its daring structure; the renovation of the Pinacoteca do Estado, with audacious metallic inserts; and outstanding private houses, starting with his own. In 2006, he became the second Brazilian architect, after Oscar Niemeyer, to win the Pritzker Prize. This retrospective catalogue is the first major publication on Mendes da Rocha since the establishment of his archive at the Casa da Arquitectura in 2021. A team of international scholars provides a comprehensive view of the architect's trajectory and the collective dimension of his work, along with thematic essays. Mendes da Rocha's identity as a South American architect interested in the geographic relation between nature and culture is underlined. The book's contributors explore his concern with the social and anthropogenic impact of the continent's development, as well as its colonial past and postcolonial future. The volume centers around twelve of his most important buildings and reprints two important essays on Mendes da Rocha's work. This will be an essential book on this significant figure of global modernism and will point the way for future scholarship on Mendes da Rocha and the architecture of contemporary Brazil. Distributed for Casa da Arquitectura-Portuguese Centre for Architecture Exhibition Schedule: Casa da Arquitectura, Porto (May 26, 2023-February 25, 2024)

As an industry that relies on extracted materials and an intense use of resources, isn't construction unsustainable by design? The pressure is increasing for the sector to diligently address the harm caused by the built environment, begging the question of whether real sustainability in architecture and planning is possible. As institutionalized and commodified greenwashing hollows out the term, how do architects and designers position their work beyond the inadequacy of a flattening universalistic understanding of sustainability? What forms of practice allow for accountable and revolutionized construction modes? How can we critically engage with technology as an ambivalent tool in the service of green capitalism. The first volume of a forthcoming series by RIOT—Research and Innovation On Territory, a laboratory within the Institute of Architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), On Architecture and Greenwashing presents a cross-section of positions on architecture and its political economies and explores ways to correct course in the face of a climate crisis of unprecedented magnitude— beyond greenwashing. RIOT—Research and Innovation On Territory—is a laboratory engaged in pedagogy and research within the Institute of Architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), lead by architect and urban designer CHARLOTTE MALTERRE-BARTHES. Believing that the construction sector and design disciplines must pivot and wholeheartedly engage in the current social and climatic urgencies by rewiring themselves to face and repair the harm, RIOT utilizes tactics and strategies to decarbonize, decolonize, and depatriarchalize space production—by design.

As one of the worlds megacities, São Paulo has for decades seen an investment in architectural infrastructures that attempt to mitigate its open space shortages as well as fulfill the constant need for recreational, cultural, and sports programs. These buildings and open spaces - which can be public, semi-public, or privately-owned - arguably attempt to create inclusive places for urban society. This exhibition catalogue presents projects at different scales, focusing on their programmatic characteristics rather than the formal qualities usually emphasized in scholarship on Brazilian architecture. While many cities around the world are still chasing the so-called "Bilbao Effect" - the creation of a monofunctional "signature" architectural work by a famous architect that can attract tourism - this exhibition catalogue advocates for architectural infrastructure that adds programs of different natures, and that are aimed at social sustainability for local citizens. This aspect of urban growth in São Paulo - quite a vertical and densely-populated city; a city of great resources and also tremendous poverty; a city with high crime rates; a city with severe traffic issues; a city with public-health problems - illustrates how architecture and infrastructure can contribute to a city's urban development in multiple ways.

This innovative edited collection charts the rise, fall and possible futures of the word primitive. The word primitive is fundamental to the discipline of architecture in the west, providing a convenient starting point for the many myths of architecture's origins. Since the almost legendary 1970s conference on the Primitive, with the advent of post-modernism and, in particular, post-colonialism, the word has fallen from favour in many disciplines. Despite this, architects continue to use the word to mythologize and reify the practice of simplicity. Primitive includes contributions from some of today’s leading architectural commentators including Dalibor Vesely, Adrian Forty, David Leatherbarrow, Richard Weston and Richard Coyne. Structured around five sections, Negotiating Origins; Urban Myths; Questioning Colonial Constructs; Making Marks; and Primitive Futures, the essays highlight the problematic nature of ideas of the primitive, engage with contemporary debate in the field of post colonialism and respond to a burgeoning interest in the non-expert architecture. This now controversial subject remains, for better or worse, intrinsic to the very structure of Modernism and deeply embedded in architectural theory. Considering a broad range of approaches, this book provides a rounded past, present and future of the word primitive in the architectural sphere.

From participatory architecture to interaction design, the question of how design accommodates use is driving inquiry in many creative fields. Expanding utility to embrace people’s everyday experience brings new promises for the social role of design. But this is nothing new. As the essays assembled in this collection show, interest in the elusive realm of the user was an essential part of architecture and design throughout the twentieth century. Use Matters is the first to assemble this alternative history, from the bathroom to the city, from ergonomics to cybernetics, and from Algeria to East Germany. It argues that the user is not a universal but a historically constructed category of twentieth-century modernity that continues to inform architectural practice and thinking in often unacknowledged ways.

Hubsch's argument that the technical progress and changed living habits of the nineteenth century rendered neoclassical principles antiquated is presented here along with responses to his essay by architects, historians, and critics over two decades.