São Paulo, We Need to Talk about Architecture
This paper was written in 2017 for the discipline "Essays on Architecture," instructed by James Graham, as part of my master's degree in Critical, Curatorial, and Conceptual Practices in Architecture at Columbia University in New York.
São Paulo is the most populous city in Brazil and one of the country’s largest cities in the area; it is also a significant financial, tourist, and cultural hub. The town is composed mostly of buildings of modernist language, with eclectic buildings from the end of the XIX and beginning of the XX centuries, a few remaining constructions made of adobe from its formation years, and contemporary office centers of mirrored glass. The metropolis is a complex, confusing–but still compelling–urban scenario supported by deficient urban plans and massive real estate investments. Currently, São Paulo has ten architecture schools offering bachelor's degrees and more than 400 offices. Although the discipline has been continuously built and taught, the discussions around architecture remain largely confined within the boundaries of academia and design offices. They are only shared with the greater public occasionally by a few cultural institutions. This paper aims to alert for a lack of systematic communication and exchange of a vast and relevant architectural production in the city.
To talk here does not mean pointing to examples of historical or contemporary architecture as guidebooks do; it does not aim to address architecture as independent objects but as systematic elements composed of multiple agents and users. To call to talk intends to suggest the establishment of connections between different spheres of architecture production and the involvement of a variety of audiences, including non-professional ones such as students, architects, scholars, politicians, decision-makers, sociologists, scientists, and the general public. However, talking is also meant in a critical sense, an impulse for posing questions and fostering perspectives that go beyond a simple presentation of architecture and advocate its debate.
Although gaps between architectural realms exist, the reflection proposed here has also been encouraged by moments of perceived enthusiasm within specialized circles towards events such as the 10th São Paulo's International Architecture Biennial (2013) entitled “City: Ways of Making, Ways of Using,” which contributed to moving away from discussions focused on design inviting the public to reflect on architecture in a broader sense, and also exposed issues of mobility–a subject very much in tension at that time–proposing multiple locations for its program, as well as projects such as Art/City (a new edition is currently in development), in which artistic interventions investigated urban restructuring tools through the connection of visitors and the place’s history and present conditions, transforming everyone into potential proponents.
In addition, considering that the country has recently moved from a period of economic growth (from the end of the 2000s to around 2014) to a severe economic and political crisis significantly affecting architecture and, more directly, building and construction economies, it seems pertinent to inquire the system of architecture production and forms of interaction among architects, politicians, real estate agents, and the broad public. Urgent topics have been challenging architectural activities in São Paulo: questions of mobility, dwelling shortage, how the city’s remarkable economic divide shapes the urban context, real estate regulation, the relationship of the town with its rivers and banks, preservation of modern architecture; the precarious system of professional compensation and labor laws; and so on. How are these issues discussed? Where does it happen? On one hand, architecture lectures, conferences, and seminars exist in small numbers and are not only confined to academic environments but also often focused on particular discussion topics. On the other hand, public demonstrations of urban tensions have been growing in the city, as manifested in the 2013 series of protests that occupied different streets of the city–primarily Paulista Avenue, but also the Sé Square, the square in front of the City Hall, and the Batata Square–demanding the right of transportation, and more widely, the right of the city. It seems then that communication is absent in different realms, even among architects. How is it possible to establish connections between different parts of the production system? How do we expose urban traumas and guide processes to overcome them? I first propose discussing how to expose these subjects and putting involved and exciting parts into the conversation. In this regard, it seems crucial to examine the existence and roles of publications, exhibitions, and talks and discuss the institutionalization of these practices.
When looking at different scenarios in Europe and the United States, it is possible to claim that architecture occupies different cultural spaces, including specialized platforms fostering public encounters of multiple audiences and provoking the reflection of critical concerns. Exhibitions are currently ubiquitous forms of architectural presentation. They have become important sites for promoting new research and are spaces of methodological innovation contributing to the reflection of architecture history and the development of disciplinary practices. If, in the last decades, various institutions have engaged with architecture through exhibitions, it is necessary to remember that other formats had relevant roles in establishing architecture communication and debate and still have a large institutional presence. This is the case of publications, especially magazines and journals, that were eminent forms of disseminating architectural ideas throughout modernity–with “experimental little magazines” in the 1920s and its transformation launching “radical practices” in the 1960s and 1970s. Publications can still be seen as critical pieces in the dissemination of architecture production and in establishing arenas for exposing critical thoughts to bolster debates around relevant subjects. The passage from the printed page to three-dimensional relations is relevant for transforming an interchange of ideas. This increased in the 1970s when architecture entered art spaces and new institutions were created, driven by disciplinary challenges. I would also argue that even if the exhibition is seen as today’s main media for architecture, activities founded on the concept of the forum–such as talks and panel discussions–were central in this transition, offering moments of direct conceptual confrontation and the disclosure of processes and details not often found in official documentation.
In São Paulo, publications did not perform as spaces of radical experimentation. Still, they contributed to the development of critical perspectives in the 1970s, as indicated by the researchers Maria Alice Junqueira Bastos and Ruth Verde Zein: “After a period of decline of specialized publications in architecture, Módulo was relaunched followed by the launch of the magazines Projeto and Pampulha still in the mid-1970s; in 1976, the IAB of Rio de Janeiro promoted a book covering a series of personal testimonies published under the title Brazilian Architecture after Brasília: Testimonies, in which it is noteworthy the frustration with the most eminent group of architects and, at the same time, the advocacy for postures more concerned with the reality in a broader sense–physical and climate environments, social and cultural aspects, constructive methods in pace with economic issues, etc. Retaking an architectural debate on the national scale stimulated and gave evidence of a prolific period of ideas and creations.” However, Zein also indicates a resentment among scholars against magazines. Throughout the years, some publications became too commercial, abandoning their critical role and focusing on more descriptive texts full of images and publicity. Nevertheless, a few recent initiatives demonstrated a desire to rethink specialized publications, which also manifested various interests. Monolito is a monographic magazine published in 2011, in which each edition focuses on a specific subject, varying in themes, from young architects or dwelling buildings to the work of an office. It provides spaces for advanced research and new voices to emerge. Centro is an online magazine edited since the end of 2015 interested in urban research that claims to focus “on latent issues of Brazilian cities, with multidisciplinary thoughts, intersecting architecture, art, literature, and social sciences” and has expanded its program to courses about Brazilian architecture. Contravento, created by architecture students in 2003, aims to explore political and cultural circumstances through graphic-visual compositions. The latter offers a different perspective as it has been published more frequently by a publishing house organized around collective practices related to artistic productions. In this regard, the recent emergence of shared spaces by professionals in different areas–such as architectural design, graphic design, design products, urban planning, etc–has not only urged prolific exchanges and the composition of different groups of work but also influenced forms of exposing ideas as discussions. Printed media then seems to have a more diverse perspective, especially considering the growth of small publishing houses impelled by publication fairs in the city.
Differently, architecture exhibitions could only be identified in large institutions, but they still received little space in shows that mainly focused on renowned architects. Architecture seems then to be positioned as a secondary program largely explored on celebratory dates, as noticed in shows such as “New World of Space: an Exhibition on Le Corbusier” (1950), “Sérgio Bernardes” (1983) and the presence of architecture projects in the 2013 “Panorama of Brazilian Art,” all at the Museum of Modern Art (MAM-SP); “Oscar Niemeyer in São Paulo” at Institute Tomie Ohtake in 2004; and on the work of Vilanova Artigas at Itaú Cultural in 2015. Although occasional, some workshops and talks have been organized, expanding the exhibition scope and allowing a diverse audience to interact with the presented objects and discourses in a heterogeneous and fruitful way as it occurred in the exhibition of Vilanova Artigas, where a series of meetings brought the architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha and the musician Jorge Mautner –among others–to expose their experiences with Artigas.
In addition, architecture has two other large spaces for exhibition: a Biennial and the Museum of the Brazilian House. They occupy an essential position in this scenario, but for still unclear reasons, they have not been able to create consistent and systematic experiences. Maybe architects have disengaged from their discursive skills while, at the same time, they have not learned how to produce visually appealing events that congregate massive audiences. Architecture was exhibited with painting and sculpture in the first São Paulo Biennial in 1951. The Biennial would mark “the ingress of Brazil into the active currents of international artistic relations,” and architecture was a strategic part of the plan for a city in a fast growth process. Years later, the Brazilian Institute of Architects proposed a separate exhibition for architecture. The first São Paulo International Architecture Biennial happened in 1973, in which “one third of the projects were about public constructions, which somehow mirrored the ‘Great Brazil’ climate that reflected the economic miracle characteristic of the military regime.” If the Biennial could sign a relevant position occupied by the discipline, on the other hand, it could not overcome its status as a disciplinary vitrine, still serving as propaganda and failing to create an ambiance for the current divergences among those who would build without debate and those who would debate without building under problematic political circumstances. Not by chance, it took twenty years for another Architecture Biennial to happen–also due to an economic crisis in the 1980s–also attempting to reposition itself “to promote forms for the Brazilian society to access the debate about the past, present and future of architecture, urbanism, and design, in a way to put once again architecture in the central subject of the Brazilian culture.” However, as the researcher and professor Raquel Rolnik echoes a general opinion among architects: “the Biennial was transformed in something between a show and a fair of architectural objects and institutional publicity of government and its corporative allies while the city outside disintegrated.” The Biennial has had a challenged presence and reputation in a deficient scenario for architecture discussions. It still represents a potential platform, as demonstrated by its 10th edition, but its future is uncertain.
The last example to be pointed out here is what seems to be the most stable structure for architecture in the city. Created in 1970, the Museum of the Brazilian House was the first museum related to architecture and design in Brazil. Although being an institution dedicated primarily to the Brazilian house, evidenced through its historical spatial arrangements and objects which are permanently on view in the museum, it has organized architecture exhibitions and conversations of a variety of themes, creating a dialogue between architecture and other disciplines such as fashion and visual arts. The museum somehow inverts the logic of other cultural institutions. However, it seems to give more attention to objects instead of their conception, development, and supporting discourses. The institution has also recently opened appointments for researchers to access its bibliographic collection–with historical books, theses, catalogs, and others–and an online platform with a rich literary collection entitled “Furnishings of the Brazilian House – Use and Habits,” which documents objects and pieces of the domestic space such as furniture, lighting, and even construction methods, enabling historical examination and encouraging contemporary research.
I would not only highlight the importance of increasing the presence of architecture as a subject in publications, exhibitions, and talks, taking architecture out of its isolated condition but also of making them more regular (considering a positive sense of systematization of event creation) for creating a solid and potential network. Considering that this initial review indicated a recurrent problem in the treatment of architecture as pieces or detached objects, giving little importance to their development processes, I would also argue that São Paulo needs platforms that don’t operate simply as architecture vitrines disseminating images guided by the logic of the reference, but where architectural tensions can be exposed and the mechanism of their existence unveiled. The city would largely benefit from spaces that provoke reflections and propositions to urgent questions, allowing for experience and expertise to be exchanged and research to be promoted and exhibited to wider audiences and not specialized ones. In short, I would propose to think of publications, exhibitions, and talks organized in the form of projects and sequences of events, creating a systematic intellectual environment that seeks public engagement and allows further disciplinary developments, taking architecture out of its isolated state. Questions that inevitably came up when elaborating on the reflections were: How can these connections be created and this system established? Would it be by increasing the presence of architecture in existing institutions? Or through new events as part of a more extensive program of architecture advocacy? Or even more, would it be through a new institution with a specific mission working as an agency for architecture discussions–a sort of think-tank? These questions are still to be answered. This call aims to alert for the lack of agencies and platforms able to position architecture as a cultural element in São Paulo and one that invites others to participate in further conversations.
