Iñigo Bujedo Aguirre Photography

Projected in 1950 by the Brazilian and Italy born modernist architect as the couple’s home, the Glass House today holds part of their particular art collection that they acquired throughout the years. With its harmonies of light and geometry, density and apparent weightlessness, Casa de Vidro [Glass House], by Lina Bo Bardi (Rome, Italy, 1914 – São Paulo, Brazil, 1992) in Morumbi, São Paulo, is one of the most beautiful of all architect’s homes. It is also, certainly, one of the most important works of 20th-century Latin American architecture, forging ideas and motifs that would later be extended and reworked in projects as MASP – Museu de Arte de São Paulo (1957–1968), along the Avenida Paulista, and the SESC Fábrica da Pompeia (1977), a huge multidisciplinary complex, on the site of an old factory. Casa de Vidro was completed in 1951, the year of Bo Bardi’s naturalisation as a Brazilian, roughly five years after her relocation from a devastated Italy. Lina Bo once wrote, following the war, that ‘in Europe man’s house is now rubble’1. But just as much as the ruin allegorises loss, Casa de Vidro looks out onto its forest surrounds with a defiant sense of optimism, symbolising rebirth and renewal. It seems to be both grounded within and floating above its environment, combining a stability and lightness similar to that which Bardi achieved with the freestanding space in MASP and her glass panes, designed to display artworks in the Museum.

The year 1982 saw the arrival of a new and striking architectural landmark in Brazil, in the city of São Paulo. It was the Centro de Lazer Fábrica da Pompéia (Pompéia Factory Leisure Centre), now known simply as SESC Pompéia. An architectural complex in some ways shocking, combining a red-brick building that had housed a drum factory since the 1920s – well proportioned, in the style of British factories – with three huge and unconventional concrete towers connected by aerial walkways. Lina Bo Bardi, who had suffered ostracism for almost ten years, as a victim of the military regime and also of the conventional architectural outlook, surprised everyone with this gift to São Paulo. Paris had just seen the inauguration of the Pompidou Centre, an extravagant architectural model that caused a stir among students and young architects, and which would soon become a point of reference. It symbolised an escape route from a modernist model already somewhat in decline. Comparisons were therefore inevitable with the new cultural and sports centre that had sprung up in the district of Pompéia: they shared an industrial idiom; abrupt changes of scale; colours, many colours; and, principally, ‘strangeness’ in the context of their surroundings. And yet, despite all this, the two proposals were very distant and dissimilar in their origins, ideology and results. © Marcelo Ferraz

MASP - Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand MASP the Museum of Contemporary Art of Sao Paulo. Founded on October 2, 1947 by Assis Chateaubriand (1892-1968), MASP celebrates its 75th anniversary . The history of the museum is marked by the invitation made by Chateaubriand to the Italian critic and art dealer Pietro Maria Bardi (1900-1999) to direct MASP, and to Lina Bo Bardi (1914-1992) to develop the architectural and expographic project. Initially, MASP was installed in a building on Rua 7 de Abril, in the center of the city, receiving major exhibitions by national and foreign artists for over 20 years. In 1968 the museum was transferred to its current headquarters on Avenida Paulista, an iconic project by Lina Bo Bardi, which became a landmark of 20th century modern architecture. Today the MASP collection brings together more than 11 thousand works, including paintings, sculptures, objects, photographs, videos and clothing from different periods, covering European, African, Asian and American production.

An old sugar mill, the Solar consists of a number of beautifully preserved heritage buildings centered around a lovely stone courtyard that dates back to the 18th century. Half the fun is just to wander around and explore the various buildings set on the waterfront (the views are fabulous). The main building houses a small modern art museum; you'll find some works of Portinari and Di Cavalcanti on display.

The Oficina Teatro (Theater office) was designed by Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi in São Paulo in 1984. The renovation of the historic and previously burned office building into a theater was conceived almost entirely as a painted scaffolding, referencing the construction of the sets housed in the venue. Teatro Oficina has challenging sightlines, hard seats and is very much not the shape theatres are meant to be, but it is all the more intense for that. Teatro Oficina was a restoration project run by the Oficina Teatre Company in Bexiga, Sao Paulo. Formerly, this was a working-class neighborhood with an enormous Italian population. Within the 1980s, it became one of the most diverse and cultural areas of the city. The theatre burned in 1966, and the rest of the brick shell was used as a people’s theatre. The building is 9 meters large and 50 meters long. The idea was to create a long, narrow, street-like space in a former theatre’s burned-out shell. Built to serve the orgiastic performances of the theatre’s creator Zé Celso, he has claimed that the open-plan’s idea came when, on an acid trip, running from the police, he found himself trapped against a solid wall. From the large main entrance off the Minhocão expressway, the theatre descends within the city block. On the right, the large glazed surface opens to provide a clearing to Silvio Santos’s adjacent property. That’s where the Teatro Oficina company creates short-term setups to attract large audiences to its shows. As a general public street, it has barely any space for spectators; it is limited to actors. The general public, the technicians, and all the items are on stage with the actors. The theatre is no longer a “dream box” but a genuine life-style.