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Foreign Architecture in Brasilia
Get PDFSurprisingly, Brasilia has a major assortment of foreign architecture, due to the diplomatic complexes it houses in the so-called South and North Embassy Sectors. From an urban point of view, such sectors were envisioned as a great international fair of buildings by renowned professionals. These buildings display a variety of solutions, in which it is always possible to distinguish typical features of the country of origin. In many of them the intention to reflect the modernity of Brasilia prevails; in others, the main objective was to enhance the country’s traditional architecture; and finally there are those in which both alternatives have been harmonized
The Restoration of the Alvorada Palace
Get PDFThis article describes the highly successful restoration of Alvorada Palace completed in 2005 by Sergio Valle Brasileiro. After situating the importance of the Alvorada within Niemeyer’s overall oeuvre and describing the original design, the dilapidated state of the building at the turn of the 21st century is described. The details of the restoration, including meetings with Oscar Niemeyer about specific design decisions and consultation with IPHAN, and the challenge of sourcing new materials to match the original, such as jacaranda - now protected by IBAMA - are also studied. The Alvorada serves as an example for the restoration of other Modernist buildings in Brazil
The Dwellers: The Integration of Art and the Architecture in the Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas
Get PDFWhen Villanueva worked in the Integration of the Arts project for the Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas, he moved from the idea of ‘synthesis of the arts’ (where arts “preserved their traditional features in order to qualify something whose existence was prior to them and of which architecture was the previous framework”) to the idea of ‘integration of the arts’, which “created a new architectural–sculptural–pictorial organism which did not express hierarchy but the formal combination of the functional and the spatial as equal categories,” he took a transcendental step to open his architecture to experimentation in the field of modern art
Belmopan: a New Capital for a New Country
Get PDFAs the British colony of British Honduras prepared for independence, it adopted two important symbols of its emerging identity; the name of Belize was chosen for the new country and a new capital was planned from which this emerging nation would be governed. That new capital was called Belmopan and was to be established inland from the old coastal capital of Belize City. Designed by the British planning and architectural firm of Norman and Dawbarn, this new city followed in the tradition of British Garden City planning, making discrete references to the Mayan heritage of the region, while using the modernist architectural vocabulary typical of so much of the infrastructural development taking place at this time in various nations emerging from colonial status
Roberto Burle Marx: Painting, Architecture and Landscaping in the Creation of a New Language for Gardens
Get PDFPainting, architecture and landscaping have never been so well incorporated in one person as in Roberto Burle Marx. His painter skills enabled Roberto Burle Marx to apply deep thorough pictorial principles to the landscape, thus avoiding other approaches made by pioneers who literally transposed cubist or abstract art, which almost resulted in caricatures. His botanical knowledge allowed him to discover new species in regard to their individual beauty and to their proper integration in ecological environments, which provided adequate choices of harmonious systems in terms of their aesthetics and their good survival in the new garden habitat
Vesterport — Metal and Structure
Get PDFThe British metallurgist Cyril Stanley Smith emphasized the interdependence of science and art. His research and reflections on the sense of materiality is a lifelong experience where A Search for Structure is the noteworthy title of a book of essays published in 1992. Smith emphasizes the value of practical experience and the experience of sense as an engagement with matter. He certainly makes an impact when it comes to the concern for matter and material, referring to structure as aesthetics as well as technology and to objects of art as well as to science. No doubt this point of view is valid also when it comes to studying architecture and practical, social and philosophical possibilities of matter
Modern and Traditional: Brasilia’s Paradigms
Get PDFBy the 1950s, a shared culture spreading internationally through teaching and specialized literature became common currency in professional circles and gave rise to a repertoire of urban theories and practices. An examination of Lúcio Costa’s winning entry for the pilot plan of Brasilia attest to the existence of these paradigmatic formulae. Further more, not only was Brasilia a product of this culture, it grew to become itself archetypal. Yet, this high tide would be short-lived. In late 50s and early 60s, this veritable urban designer’s toolbox began to lose its legitimacy to become target of critical scrutiny
The Integration of the Arts
Get PDFThe arts bear witness to the cultural meaning of each period; we can discover the features that marked a historic individuality thanks to them. The more they demonstrate the union of concept or formal participation between them, the more clearly the social axis around which the man/culture duality revolves unfolds itself. The presence of this axis favours the agglutination of artistic expression. What is more, the unity of human content is fertile and a necessary condition so that the total integration flourishes. Architecture, painting, sculpture and technique combine around a common aim, around a collective purpose. The coming together of objectives facilitates the plastic synthesis
The Synthesis of the Arts and MoMa
Get PDF1948-49 were key years for the reaction of the Museum of Modern Art’s newly amalgamated Department of Architecture and Design to respond to the rising discourse on the “Synthesis of the Arts.” The response was indirect and took the form of MoMA assessing the progress of modern architecture that it had been describing and forecasting for fifteen years. The exhibition “From Le Corbusier to Niemeyer, 1929–1949” was part of a larger assessment of the fate of the international style and of the interaction between abstraction in painting and sculpture and in architectural design, a theme laid out by Alfred Barr and Hitchcock in the 1948 book Painting Toward Architecture. Niemeyer’s unbuilt Treamine House, designed with Roberto Burle Marx, was upheld as a synthesis not only of the arts but of the movements coalescing towards a postwar abstract consensus
Athos Bulcão and the Architecture of Brasilia
Get PDFThis essay aims to show Athos Bulcão’s artworks integrated into architecture in Brasilia, his career and partnership and the significance of his work as a precious legacy for the city. The artwork of Athos Bulcão not only reveals beauty and colors but an architectural identity that reflects a successful partnership between modern architecture and fine arts in Brazil. Brasilia is the high mark of modern movement where Athos Bulcão became a unique artist with the skill to amalgamate his art into architecture