PAULO MENDES DA ROCHA & L'ARCHITECTURE MODERNE AU BRÉSIL

PAULO MENDES DA ROCHA

In this exhibition, visitors are immersed in the architectural thought of Paulo Mendes de Rocha, the architect who has been awarded the Lion d’or in Venice in 2016 and the Royal Gold Medal for architecture in 2017. Paulo Mendes de Rocha shows to be particularly devoted to pure lines, simple materials and to a kind of architecture, which is at the same time sustainable, comfortable and functional. The MA is pleased to present his work under the great dome of the pavilion Sicli through sketches, models and furniture, as well as through documentaries and interviews.

Curator : Catherine Otondo, architecte

L’ARCHITECTURE MODERNE AU BRÉSIL, DANS LA VISION D’ALBERTO SARTORIS

An iconographic account about modern architecture in Brazil allows visitors to situate the work of Paulo Mendes da Rocha in his historical context; that is, the one of the second-generation of modern architects.

Salle du workshop

Curator : Salvatore Aprea, directeur des Acm

Architect, critic and theorist of the Modern Movement, Alberto Sartoris has gathered together a major collection of photographs of modern architecture as from the second half of the 1920's. From his permanently evolving collection, he has woven together two of his works each in the form of an encyclopaedia: Gli elementi dell'architettura funzionale and Encyclopédie de l'architecture nouvelle. They were published in several editions as from 1932.

Brazilian modern architecture figures already in the first edition of Gli elementi. Three houses that the naturalized Brazilian architect Gregori Warchavchik built in São Paulo as from 1928 and inspired by Le Corbusier, are in the book. Warchavchik’s initial buildings mark the birth of modern architecture in Brazil and the choice of Sartoris to publish them in 1932 was inspiring and visionary taking into consideration the interest that this new style of architecture from the other side of the Atlantic would arouse in the decades to come. 
As modern architecture spread in Brazil, the iconographic collection of Sartoris benefited with his new editions illustrating and portraying the new buildings and projects. The images of the Pavillion of Brazil at the International Fair of New York in 1939 are published in his third edition of Gli elementi. However, it was not until 1954 and the publication of that year's volume of the Encyclopédie de l'architecture nouvelle dedicated to American architecture, that we can witness a true detailed report and representation of the modern buildings of Brazil. The importance that Sartoris attributed to these architectural accomplishments can be immediately seen from the cover, which shows the Head Quarters of the Ministry of Education and Health in Rio de Janeiro. The Brazilian modern architecture "surprizes by its vitality and exceeds in quantity all the other countries of the world", declares the architect in one of his theoretical texts in the iconographic collection. The work of Sartoris in 1954 falls within the wake devised from the publication of the catalogue of the Brazil Builds Exhibition of 1943 and by the volumes that The Architectural Review and L’Architecture d'Aujourd'hui dedicated to Brazil in 1944 and 1947. 
On the basis of Sartoris’ editorial choices, and the extraordinary collection of photographs in his possession, this exhibition presents an iconographical path that begins with the initial works of Warchavchik, close to European counterparts of the radical forward thinking modernist movement of the 1920's, and then lets the visitor explore the research and works of art of several architects, right up to the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro of Affonso Eduardo Reidy, which shows a magnificent combination of structural and plastic elements.