This guide to modern Brazilian architecture takes us on a tour of over 125 projects designed between 1928-1960. There are works by 33 architects, and each entry gives a brief description, photographs, drawings, and information on visitor access.

"Oscar Niemeyer, born in 1907, is widely considered this century's leading Latin American architect, as well as one of the pioneers of modern architecture. This volume explores the major themes and sources of the most important works from all phases of Niemeyer's career, from the early collaborations of the 1930s and 1940s with Lucio Costa, the spiritual father of Brazilian modernism, to the 1989 Memorial da America Latina in Sao Paulo, a complex that reveals the maturation of Niemeyer's free-form style in the service of his utopian vision. A central theme of Niemeyer's work has been its reflection of the Brazilian jeito, a sinuous and improvisational style manifested in everything from the country's sensual, undulating landscape to its attraction to spontaneous impulses, best known through its vibrant music and dance. The jeito and the milieu of Rio de Janeiro lie at the heart of Niemeyer's free-form style, which emphasizes the inherent plasticity of the native curve over the rigid rectilinearity of the International Style in Europe. A second theme treats the influence on Niemeyer of the poetic style of Le Corbusier. Also considered are Niemeyer's attraction to surrealist biomorphic forms and his desire to express a sense of the fantastic in architecture. A final theme is Niemeyer's search for an aesthetic utopia that would resolve social dilemmas by wishing them away through architecture. Herein lies Niemeyer's strength, for as his architecture reflects the multiple dichotomies of the Brazilian experience, it projects an emotive universality that few architects have been able to achieve."--Publisher.

The most comprehensive survey and analysis of 20th-century Brazilian architecture.

"The book constitutes a unique presentation of the major Modern buildings in Brazil in their historical context. Prompted by the contemporary revaluation of Modernism and the renewed interest in Brazil, this book examines how the buildings came into being, how they came to be so highly regarded, and the changing reactions to them in Brazil and abroad."--Jacket

Architecture as Civil Commitment analyses the many ways in which Lucio Costa shaped the discourse of Brazilian modern architecture, tracing the roots, developments, and counter-marches of a singular form of engagement that programmatically chose to act by cultural means rather than by political ones. Split into five chapters, the book addresses specific case-studies of Costa’s professional activity, pointing towards his multiple roles in the Brazilian federal government and focusing on passages of his work that are much less known outside of Brazil, such as his role inside Estado Novo bureaucracy, his leadership at SPHAN, and his participation in UNESCO’s headquarters project, all the way to the design of Brasilia. Digging deep into the original documents, the book crafts a powerful historical reconstruction that gives the international readership a detailed picture of one of the most fascinating architects of the 20th century, in all his contradictory geniality. It is an ideal read for those interested in Brazilian modernism, students and scholars of architectural and urban planning history, socio-cultural and political history, and visual arts.

In architecture, a span is something to be conquered, a challenge to overcome. For an instance by reducing the number of supports, expanding floor slabs horizontally, tearing into the open air, and shedding more light on the ground floor. But span, or vao in Portuguese, also means a project or an action that ends in failure: something that was done in vain. In Brazil, modernisation was touted as a leap over the country s history, cast as backwardness and, in the case of architecture, over the absence of two traditions: the classical and the artisanal an abysmal jump, in the face of the immense scale of its territory. And a challenge met head-on by an ambitious aesthetic avantgarde, invested in new design and remarkable engineering. Brazil is a country condemned to the modern, said the critic Mario Pedrosa, conceiving this condemnation as liberation from tradition and as a freedome to transform what could be done in vain ( em vao ) in the effective cultural conquest of the free span ( vao livre ). For Brazilian architects, the word vao is almost always a synonym of freedom. This publication assembles representative projects and works of Brazilian architecture made between 1920 and 2018. It will propose crosscutting dialogues between the presented projects and highlight the intersections between architecture, music, literature, cinema, and performing arts. The book is structured in six chronological and thematic modules with titles corresponding to outstanding songs of each period. 400 illustrations