Product Description

Arquitectura Viva 144 Brasil Construye · BRAZIL BUILDS

Brazil builds, but quantity still exceeds quality. Almost seven decades after ‘Brazil Builds’, the mythical exhibition at New York’s MoMA that in 1943 introduced tropical modernity to the world, the country prepares two large sport events that will testify to its economic prosperity and, foreseeably, also to its architectural and cultural dynamism. In two years, the World Cup will be played in twelve Brazilian cities, and both the efficiency of the organization and the architecture of the stadiums will show the country’s accomplishments to visitors and audiences; and in four years, the celebration of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro will examine the capacity for urban regeneration of one of the planet’s most beautiful cities, but also one of the most conflictive. With their Brazilian bet, first the FIFA and then the IOC have decided to pay due tribute to the country, and at the same time put it
to the test.
The success story crafted by the successive presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff has turned Brazil into a cool destination, routinely described in Sunday newspaper supplements with the words ‘energy’, ‘vitality’ and ‘optimism’. These features, without a doubt, liven up this booming moment, but only good governance has managed to exploit the vast geographical and human potential of a nation that is the world’s fifth in extension and population, and that is today one of the twenty largest economies in the globe, and the undisputed leader of South America. The stability of its institutions and the political skill of its leaders have been the strong bases of a momentum that, although clearly manifest in quantitative terms, should now veer towards eroding social inequalities, promoting quality of life and encouraging scientific research and cultural production.
It is at this point that architecture and urbanism come in, because the huge growth of cities and wealth has not yet spurred the creative explosion that one could expect. If we continue resorting to the hackneyed opposition between the schools of Río and São Paulo, it is due to the fact that the flourishing of a new generation has still not produced architecture to match that of its forbears, be them those gathered by Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer in Río, or those around Vilanova Artigas and Mendes da Rocha in São Paulo; barely a few works by veterans like Lelé or Marcos Acayaba, or of the younger teams MK27 or BCMF, blur with their constructive precision the nostalgia for the lyrical emotion of Burle Marx or Lina Bo Bardi. But the collection of works featured in this issue are at once a pixelled portrait of the Brazil of this hour and a proposal for condensation nuclei around which the critical mass of excellence that the country deserves may crystallize.

Roberto Segre
Rio or São Paulo? Modernity in Brazil
Guilherme Wisnik
Emerging Tropic. From Brasilia to the Rio Games
Fernando Serapião
Generation Seville. The Young Brazilians

Works / Projects

Boldarini Arquitetura e Urbanismo, Urbanización Cantinho do Céu
Biselli y Katchborian, CEU Pimentas
Mendes da Rocha y Metro Arquitetos, Leme Gallery
Studio MK27, Photographic Studio
Neiva y Oksman, Criar Institute
Spbr Arquitetos, House in Ubatuba
Lelé, Sarah Hospital
BCMF Arquitetos, Sport Complex
Grupo SP, SEBRAE Headquarters
Arquitetos Associados, C. Burle Marx
Forte, Gimenes & Macondes Ferraz Arquitetos, Grid House
Brasil Arquitetura, ISA Headquarters

Art / Culture

Jesús López Díaz
Inhabitable Geometry
Juan M. Sánchez La Chica
Bonded Matter

Javier Molins
‘Luz del sur’
Simón Marchán
Castles in the Air

Focho’s Cartoon
Brazil
Various Authors
Books
 
Technique / Construction

Exit Architects
Civic-Cultural Center, Palencia

Paricio y Pardal
Shutters. From Aires Mateus to Bevk Perovic

Innovation
PCM Applications
Materials
Wood
In short

Wang Shu
China’s Crossroads