Designing Dissent

7/21/2019 Designing Dissent

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/designing-dissent 1/16

Architecture and the

Paradox of Dissidence

Edited by Ines Weizman

R ~~o~ ;~~n~~~upL ON DO N A ND N EW Y O RK



Chapter 5

Designing dissent

Vila nova Artigas and the Sao

Paulo School of Architecture

Ana Marfa Leon

Arrested and forced to retire from teaching at the start of the Brazilian dictatorship,

architect .Joao Batista Vilanova Artigas (1915-85) wound up working for the regime that

had curtailed his freedom, How and why did this central figure in Brazilian architecture

turn from resistance to collaboration? A significant body of recent Brazilian scholarship

has focused on particular actors and time periods related to this question.' and by

looking for connections across a broader time scale, this essay intends to complement

and respond to these studies from an external point of view. Here, Artigas' writing,

during the 19505 and 19605 prior to the Brazilian dictatorship, will be explored in order

to establish continuities and contradictions in his discourse that can help explain his

position as both a dissident and a collaborator.

Pedagogy and industrialisation were recurring topics in Artigas' writing, and

came together most strongly in his best-known work, the Sao Paulo School of Architecture

(Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo da Universidade de Sao Paulo, hereafter FAU-

USp, 1961-69), of which he designed both the building and pedagogy (Figure 5.1) The

building is known for its large atrium, often used as a common room (Figure 5.2) with

ample sky-lit studios privileging the studio course, and large concrete spans thanks

to technological advances in the Brazilian construction industry. These characteristics

reflect the pedagogy of the school, whose curriculum prioritised the studio course within

the curriculum yet maintained links to its polytechnic origins, with a strong emphasis

on building technology. In what follows, I focus on the origins of these discourses in

the 1950s, when Brazil experienced a process of accelerated industrialisation, and the

school went through a revision of its curriculum. I then trace the incorporation of these

74



Designing dissent

Figure 5.1

Vilanova Artigas, FAU

Sp ' front view from

Ave. Luciano Gualberto

photograph c. 2011 I

discourses into the pedagogy of the school in the 1960s. followed by debates on the

political role of the discipline prompted by the military coup of 1964. This context, paired

with the threat of incoming foreign firms and the continuity of the state's developmentalist

policies, illuminates broader links in Artiqas' attitudes toward the state. I argue Artigas'

appropriation of foreign pedagogies and technology echoed the developmentalist

policies of the Brazilian military regime. and his fixation with the threat of United States

imperialism ultimately superseded the abuses of the regime he served.

Industrialisation and foreign influx

After the Second World War, Brazil began a process of accelerated industrialisation,

consolidated in the latter half of the 1950s with the developmentalist project of J uscelino

Kubitschek (1956-611.' It is possible to roughly bookend the period between two

architectural events: the 1943 'Brazil Builds' exhibition at MoMA and the construction

from scratch of Brasilia, the new modern Brazilian capital. built between 1956-1960.

These events point to a heightened attention to architecture's role in the representation

of the state. It was also a time of complex political alliances, in which the Partido

Comunista Brasileiro, or PCB (the Brazilian communist party), in an effort to resist

more conservative movements, maintained a position that could be described as anti-

imperialist rather than anti-capitalist: it protested the invasion of foreign enterprises but

promoted the industrialisation that was linked to it. As a member of the PCB, Artigas

participated in this somewhat contradictory position



Ana Maria Leon

In 1946, the young Artiqas was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation grant to

travel to the United States. In a letter, he described what he wished to see:

Figure 5.2

Vilanova Artigas,

FAU USP,SaoPaulo,

1961-69, main

atrium (photograph

c. 2011, with tarp

covering syklight for

maintenance)

What interests me most in this moment is to see the United States, and

really the part that concerns education. As much as people read about

'the Bauhaus,' for example, they can't imagine how things happen at the

practical level.

IArtigas et aI., 1997, p. 27)3

Following these plans, Artigas spent 1947 travelling around the US in search of the

Bauhaus - not the place closed down by Nazi Germany, but its academic reconfiguration

in America. Although we don't know his itinerary, we can infer from his letter that he

probably visited Walter Gropius' Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge,

Massachusetts, and Mies van der Hohe's Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.

The visit, prompted by an interest in Bauhaus pedagogy as it was being translated into

the US, seems to have had repercussions back in Brazil.

Upon his return to Sao Paulo in 1948, Artigas became director of the journal

Fundamentos, a publication addressed to PCB members.4 There, and in the context

of the Cold War, he wrote against the imperialism implicit in measuring systems _

from British, to metric, to Le Corbusier's 'Modular' _ and described these systems

as impositions by foreign companies that gave the upper hand to their products,

privileging certain racial and ideal types through their standards (i.e., establishing

76



Designing dissent

human heights for building spaces and interior furnishings). Artigas also noted that the

influx of US measuring systems, developments and investment left few options for

modern Brazilian architecture in the context of his political convictions:

Where are we? Or what to do? Wait for a new society and continue doing

what we're doing, or abandon the trades of the architect given they are

oriented in a direction hostile to the people, and launch ourselves into a

revolutionary battle completely?

(Artiqas. 1981, p. 77)5

Arguing for a third way out Artigas stated that through contact with people

affected by design, architects could develop a critical attitude. For him, this was the only

path that would allow architecture to remain within its own boundaries and at the same

time maintain an awareness of its own incapacity to disentangle from oppressive forms

of production. Artigas also mentioned Mies' and Gropius' work in the US, describing

the former as excessively concerned with form, and the latter as focused on technology

and opposed to any connections between architecture and art (Artigas, 1981, p. 63).

Artigas used these broad generalisations to construct his argument against foreign

influence, but in the case of Gropius, the interest in industrialisation was close to the

postwar industrialisation of Brazil and to Artigas' own position.Gropius explained his views on the topic himself when he visited Sao Paulo

in 1954, and presented a lecture titled 'The Architect in Industrialised Society'." The

lecture framed the balance of art and science as the fundamental aspect of design, and

encouraged architecture's involvement in the development of more modern construction

technologies. In 1952, Gropius delivered a previous version of the same lecture at the

Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects, but he omitted a few passages

for the Brazilian audience. In Chicago, he argued that current university education

favoured the sciences to the arts, and he made a plea for the latter's importance at a time

of excessive emphasis on mechanisation and expediency. By erasing these segments,

the weight of the Brazil lecture shifted to a warning about the perils of architecture losing

ground on the construction site in competition with 'the engineer, the scientist and

the constructor' (Gropius, 1954). He argued architecture should keep up to date with

new production and construction processes, yet warned that new modes of production

altered these processes by removing labour from the hands of the craftsman. However,

he did not seem aware that this process of removal was being replicated at a global

scale, as large construction companies started expanding their reach and, through their

expertise, took projects away from the hands of local professionals.

The dominance of United States brands, materials, systems and architecture

firms haunted the production of local architecture in postwar South America. While

the 1950s policies of Brazil's President Juscelino Kubitschek sought to reduce foreign

dependence through subsidised import substitution - by discouraging exports



Ana Marfa leon

world leadership' for the US. This translated to the dissemination of the corporate

architecture of firms such as Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), Harrison & Abramovitz,

and Gropius' own firm, The Architects' Collaborative (TAO The buildings produced by

these firms populated cities from the Middle East to the South American Andes, and

were described by architecture historian Manfredo Tafuri as an architectural esperanto

(Tatun. 1986, p. 339).' Confronted by their efficiency and expediency, local architects

felt their own work was being threatened, along with their authority in the design of

their own cities, ordinances and buildings.

Although TAC was not active in Brazil, Gropius' visit mobilised Artigas, who

responded to the lecture in an article describing the visitor as an 'imperialist agent' who

had put 'all the weight of his world fame to prove the yanqui superiority' (Artigas et aI.,

2004, p. 55).' These words might seem strong, but should be framed in the context of

the Cold War. For instance, the conclusion of Gropius' speech in Chicago reflects the

opposing point of view:

It is not enough [... J that we defend our democracy only; we must wage and

win the battle of ideas to make democracy a positive force and the role of us

architects is to find the dynamic means [of] how to make these ideas visible

in our environment.

(Gropius, 1952, pp. 45-46)

While Artigas saw Gropius' visit as an imperialist imposition, Gropius

sketched out this political tension as a 'battle of ideas' with architecture as a tool

to render these ideas in the built environment. It is this 'making visible' that Artigas

resisted, noting the ease with which foreign firms could 'urbanisa' Brazil using their

own employees with the simple provision of hiring one Brazilian.w In opposition to

the onslaught of United States dominance - both through corporate firms and the

imposition of measurement and building systems - he argued for a new architecture: a

tormecso da nova arquitetura (Artigas et el., 2004, p, 54). This new architecture, already

latent in the country, would resist foreign domination through the understanding of

popular wants and needs to combat generic internationalism with a language rooted

in the local. The strengthening of the discipline, which was essential to resisting the

foreign influx, would happen through the renovation of the architectural curriculum

and the strengthening of architectural pedagogy, an evolution ironically influenced by

Artigas' early visit to the United States. Artigas played a key role in the development of

the pedagogy at FAU-USp,but to understand how his political convictions came to bear

on the curriculum, we should briefly explore the origins of the school.

Pedagogies of dissent

The restructuring of the Brazil Institute of Architects (lnstituto de Arquitetos do Brasil,

lAB), and its first national congress celebrated in Sao Paulo in 1944, propelled the

reorganisation of the discipline and its separation from engineering schools, In 1948,

78



Designing dissent

the FAU-USP was created to replace the Polytechnic School, an older institution that

granted the title of 'engineer-architect' in Sao Paulo. which was Artigas' own title. In

contrast to a more difficult process in Rio de Janeiro, which had to contend with a

beaux-arts tradition as it turned to modernity, Sao Paulo's process was more fluid,

Historians agree that by highlighting the common elements between the technical

principles of correct construction and those of modern architecture. the polytechnic

was a point of departure rather than opposition for the FAU-USP11In 1957, a commission

that included Artiqas" reviewed the existing curriculum and asserted the importance

of reconceptualising the composition course (the equivalent of studio) and established

its organisation. structure, methods and work programmes (Pereira, 2009, pp. 35-36).13

Years later, Artigas remembered this process as a battle:

What we can call the fight for the autonomy of architectural education,

had its most intense phase between 1947-60 [.. 1 The first models of

education evolved from an academic position (the beaux-arts tradition) and

a technocratic position (the Polytechnic) into a modernist position, in the

aesthetic sense. influenced by the Bauhaus and by Le Corbusier, and. at

the same time, turned into a broader understanding of the construction

problems of the country,

(Pereira, 2009, p. 381"

For Artigas, these pedagogical transformations were not a mere matter of

changing curricula or styles, but a fight for autonomy. In the context of accelerated

industrialisation and the intrusion of foreign firms into the job market, the creation

and strengthening of the studio course was significant not only in terms of pedagogy;

the First National Law for the Regulation of the Professions of Engineers, Architects.

and Surveyors - decree 23.569. dated 1933 - still saw architecture as a specialisation

of engineering, which Artigas felt had shaped a negative perception of architecture

in Brazil as a secondary discipline. In this context, the studio course was created as

a tool to give architecture autonomy from engineering, and authority as a discipline

within the country. allowing it to resist the influx of foreign intervention at all scales

of design.

In 1962, an official reform formalised the recommendations put forth in

1957 and organised all research into three departments whose reformulation involved

significant chences." The Department of Composition. originally rooted in the Durand

tradition. had been previously subdivided into 'small' and 'big compositions'. It was

transformed into the Project Department, which included the areas of project planning.

industrial design and visual communication. The department of Architecture Technology

kept a connection with the professors from the engineering school. Finally, a centre of

folkloric studies. established in 1949 to promote the study of Brazilian architecture.

was absorbed into the departmental structure of the History of Architecture and Project



Ana Maria Leon

The newly created history department included not only the research of the

Brazilian past, but also the work of modern Brazilian artists such as Tarsila do Amaral

and Anita MaJfatti. These artists were part of the Grupo dos cinco, an organisation

known for group member Oswald de Andrade's 1928 Manifesto Antrop6fago. In this

canonical manifesto, de Andrade claimed Brazil gained its strength from cannibal ising

other cultures and digesting foreign influences into new creative impulses. The return

to their work in the 1960s was reframed by the ethos of participation epitomised

by Marxist educator Paulo Freire's enormously successful literacy proqtamrnea.I"

Politically motivated by the requirement of literacy to be able to vote, Freire's pedagogy

led a general turn to participation in various Brazilian art forms _ from the theatre of

Augusto Boal, which incorporated the audience into the play, to the art works of Helio

Oiticica and Lygia Clark, who sought to turn observers into participants.v Echoing this

emphasis on the popular and the local, architects became interested in the use of

rougher vernacular materials and exalted the virtues of pre-colonial traditions. Artigas

was interested in keeping foreign influences at bay and would also partially participate

in these experiments, but they found a stronger response in a younger generation at

FAU-USP,whose work would be interrupted by the rise of the military regime.

Shifting oppositions

In the mid-1960s, Brazil experienced a period of political instability that culminated

in the military coup of 1964 (Schwarz, 1992).18 It initiated an era of repression that

extended to the academic world. At USP. an internal commission organised by the

rector accused a number of teachers and students of distributing what were termed

as Marxist or subversive ideas; they were all arrested. The group included Artigas,

who was shockingly arrested in the middle of class and in front of his students." He

was absolved and moved voluntarily to Uruguay, where he stayed for two years. The

military government was purportedly temporary, but its expiration date was continually

postponed. Towards the end of 1967, university students joined workers in large-

scale protests, which were repressed by the state with escalating violence. In 1968,

the regime cancelled its own term limit, officially becoming a dictatorship. Despite

its conservative, nationalist discourse - used to court the ruling elites _ the regime

supported Kubitschek's developmentalist policies that depended on foreign trade; thus

some continuity existed from the prior administration into the new government.

Artigas moved back to Brazil in 1966, and during this unstable period

worked for the state on the design of a series of elementary schools with different

iterations of similar design principles: various activities united under a single large roof,

a main atrium and large spans. The schools were part of a state plan meant to improve

conditions for elementary education and introduce a modern image of the state in

more distant provinces. They point to Artigas' continued interest in pedagogy, and his

decision to work for the regime that had sent him into exile.20 The large scale and

prefabricated structures of some of these constructions relied precisely on the exact

measuring systems he had criticised as imperialist dominance and the mastery over

80



Designing dissent

industrialised construction advanced by Gropius. However, this technological mastery

also aligned with the image of modernity sought by the developmentalist project of the

state. It was also during these years that the FAU-USP- another state project - was

designed and built as a larger iteration of this series of schools.

Also, during this time, Artiqas' views were challenged by the Arquitetura

Nova group formed by Sergio Ferro, Rodrigo Lefevre and Flavia Imperio, who

represented a younger generation of FAU-USP faculty. The group started their

studies at the FAU-USP between 1956-57, at the moment of the first revision of its

curriculum. They graduated in 1961, were immediately hired as faculty and started

their careers by participating in the Reform of 1962. Thus their roles as students

and teachers were marked by the pedagogical restructuring that took place at the

school, and by the figure of Artiqas." In 1965, their architectural work was featured

in a journal, introduced with an essay by Artigas titled 'A false crisis' (Artiqas. 1965).22

who argued that the perception of a crisis in functionalism was false. Artigas made

veiled references to his own role as part of the modern movement's formation and

promotion in Brazil, and much of the essay revived the Gropius argument of balancing

science and art. which is understood here as industrialisation and the architect's

artistic intent. Looking at the production of the younger generation of artists. Artigas

credited the new pedagogy, which included historical, economic and social knowledge

_ a clear self-congratulation - for being able to 'invade all sectors of the visual arts,

enriching themselves with a plastic experience that will show its importance in the

near future' (Artigas, 1965, p. 2 2 1 .However, Arquitetura Nova was not as pleased with the current status of

architecture or with the role they had been assigned to play in it. For Imperio, the past

30 years of Brazilian architecture had developed closer to the bourgeois vision of pre-

capitalist economy. The discipline had been limited to monumental state buildings and

high-income residences, remaining far from its true field of operation as a social and

creative activity. Lefevre argued the market had prevented the younger generation of

architects from realising the discipline in their own terms, and they were forced to look

for alternative avenues to work outside the discipline. Ferro most poignantly pointed

out the core of their critique:

The realised work of architecture both hides and reveals a project: as

any other realisation, deforming and attenuating. amplifying or altering,

in practice, its initial proposals. But it keeps [... ] its basic orientation.

And. because of this, the work allows the reconstruction [... 1 of the most

significant traces of the structure of the project.

(Ferro, 1967, p. 3)

Effectively the first post-Brasilia generation, Arquitetura Nova denounced

the work of Artigas and Oscar Niemeyer as well as the PCB (of which they were both

members) as collaborating with the developmentalist discourse of the military regime. In

contrast. they proposed to focus on the relations of production, the labour conditions of

the construction worker and traditional construction techniques developed specifically



An a Mari a Leo n

to lower costs and increase access to housing - tactics they defined as the 'poetics

of economy'. This desire for a Brazilian specificity was in alignment with the emphasis

of the history department where Ferro and Lefevre taught. However, their practice was

limited to commissions from friends, thus reducing their scope to the bourgeois class

they sought to escape.

In a way, Arquitetura Nova's position aligned with Artiqas' earlier call for a

closer awareness to the conditions of production and an understanding of the people

they serve as the best path for architecture; his call, after Gropius' visit to Brazil, for

a nova arquitetura focused on popular wants and needs (Artigas et al., 2004, p. 54).

But rather than follow his prior advice, Artigas' practice opted for the integration of

architectural design and advanced construction technologies in a way that followed

the position advocated by Gropius, despite having different formal results. The

heavy monumentality balanced with large spans and openings that informs many of

these works sets itself apart from Tafuri's architectural esperento without falling into

discourses of regionalism or tropicalism. They do not merely make up a regionalist

discourse; they are the result of a shared school. Yet for the same reasons, they

became convenient tropes for the oevelopmentanst discourse of the regime and

monuments to the modernity of the state. In his inaugural lesson at FAU-USP in 1967,

Artigas responded to Arquitetura Nova's objections:

Don't expect me to take sides against machinery or technology. Ouite on

the contrary, I think that both contribute to enlarge the field for architects

and artists, as well as the means of performing their work. I am among

those who believe that machines make it possible for art to have a renewed

function in society.

(Artigas etal., 1997, p. 129)23

In the same lecture, Artigas reflected on the meaning of the word 'design' as

both drawing and intent; that is, purpose (desenho in Portuguese means both drawing

and design). He explained that to design or form an idea, or to have intent, carries with

it an artistic drive, while to draw a font, for instance, implies a technological meaning.

This semantic meditation is indicative of Artigas' interest in Heidegger in the late 1960s,a distant view from his materialist position of the 1950s. However, he had not lost his

political convictions. He specified that the advantage of the word 'design' over 'project'

is that it can be used for a building, an electricity station or a society. Consequently, it

implies the intention of change, including political change: change that can be enacted

through the design of both the social and physical environment.

In October of 1968, these opinions came into direct confrontation at FAU-

USP,where Artigas reconfirmed his choice for 'a Brazilian proposal of development,

revolutionary, of course' - in other words, his intention to continue accepting large-

scale commissions from the state, while maintaining his opposition to it). Seeing the

options for architecture reduced to either serving the regime or what he described

as 'a choice for cheapness based on the fact that we are a poor country', he argued

that poverty comes from oppression, and accepting such an aesthetic would be the

82



Designing dissent

equivalent of absolving the bourgeoisie of all its faults as the dominant class. Finally,

he saw another, more dangerous option starting to appear in the school: the creation

of guerrillas, militant groups inside the school that were preparing for active combat

against the dictatorship. How can we make a revolution, he asked, without the technical

knowledge and artistic vision needed of the world? (Cunha, 2009, p. 73).24

At this moment several debates overlapped with each other. Issues on

technology and vernacular were often used as shortcuts to allude to larger structural

problems. Arquitetura Nova believed that opting for advanced technological solutions

aligned with the oevelopmentalist project of the state, and resistance was to be found

against it in order to return some agency to architecture by controlling production

independent of the forces of capital. For Artigas, oevelopmentalsm was a deliberate

choice against poverty and oppression. Yet both sides of the debate were superseded

by the urgency of the increasing violence and repression taking over Brazil, and the

more radical option of actual combat. Then the military intervened.

Between dictatorship and empire

In the early 1970s, the Brazilian military removed the main actors of the debate from

the school. Ferro and Lefevre were imprisoned and accused of subversive activities.

Imperio was also briefly detained (Koury, 2003, p. 3D). After their release, Ferro and

Imperio combined their practice with other disciplines: Imperio worked on theatre

scenography and collaborated with playwrights Augusto Baal and Jose Celso Martinez

Correa, who were linked to the wider tropicalist movement. Ferro focused on writing

and painting, and relocated to France, where he could not practise, and instead taughtat the Grenoble School of Architecture. Finding architecture too entangled with the

restrictions of the regime, the group seemed to lose faith in the discipline's possibilities

for political agency. Only Lefevre continued working as an architect. before his

premature death in a car accident."

Artigas was forced to retire from teaching but was allowed to work; the

regime seems to have considered his ideas more dangerous than his buildings. In

the 19705 he worked for the state designing social housing complexes for the State

Company for Popular Houses (Companhia Estadual de Casas Populates. CECAPL

and his practice thrived." Through this work he was able to build for the very poor -

those segments of society Arquitetura Nova was never able to reach. Yet. we cannot

divorce the social content of his practice from the fact that it was done in the service

of a violent authoritarian state. Artigas' position was more complicated than a purely



An a M a r ia Le on

If the invasion of United States products, systems and design firms was

perceived by Artigas as a threat to Brazilian architects in the 19505, this threat was

somewhat ameliorated thanks to the strict stewardship of the military government

during the years of the dictatorship. The first years of military rule were a period of

great economic growth known as the 'Brazilian miracle', in which import substitution

policies similar to those of Kubitschek's in the 1950s were complemented by

incentives for exports that capitalised on national resources. Thus while the Brazilian

military encouraged foreign investment. it kept its dominance of the internal market

at bay by giving incentives to surplus production and exports. Furthermore, eager to

promote a mixture of technological modernity and national pride, the regime supported

Brazilian architects and discouraged the intervention of foreign firms. Although Artigas'

collaboration with the regime was contrary to his political convictions, it was aligned

with his resistance to foreign economic and architectural modes of dominance. In other

words, his resistance to empire superseded his antagonism to the dictatorship. In the

end, United States imperialism seems to have become a spectre of dominance, haunting

Artigas' essays throughout his career. In his writings, the figure of the distant empire

was a more menacing presence than the regime that actually controlled the country.

Like other miracles, of course, the economic situation was not all it appeared

to be: income concentration favoured the rich over the poor, urban over rural, and

middle-aged over youth. The gains in national production did not benefit those with

lower incomes, who saw their wages stagnate. The lure of education, of higher wages

for skilled workers and trained professionals, promised a way out of poverty. In this

context, the dictatorship kept tight control over the pedagogy of schools, which led

to an additional reform in 1969. University students had played a large role in political

protest. and pedagogy in general was associated with the teachings of Freire and the

left. Yet the regime, perhaps aware of the image of modernity lent by architecture,

decided to support the autonomy of the discipline. The schools of architecture and

engineering were finally separated in the 1969 state-led reforrn.>

In 1973, a report on the teaching of architecture in Brazil was produced by

the FAU-USP for the International Union of Architects IUrA) and UNESCO, using texts by

Artigas and Flavia Motta (Artigas, 1993)." Artigas' voice in the report reveals the degree

to which he was able to operate within the dictatorship, and his focus at the time: the

valorisation of national culture, which he commends the UIA for encouraging in contrast

to the ClAM, as a way to decolonise architecture from foreign influences. Nowhere in

the report is there any mention of the dictatorship or his own forced retirement from

teaching. Going back to his differentiation between 'design' and 'project' of 1967, Artigas

linked the notion of project - as the architectural project - with the demonstration of

sovereignty. He concluded that the reforms he implemented at FAU-USp' which in turn

came to influence other schools of architecture in Brazil, prompted the formation of

a Brazilian school. Artigas argued that this school, characterised by its tachnoloqicaladvances and increased appreciation of national cultures, had been able to maintain

independence from the dominance of foreign tendencies. In other words, although he

was not alJowed to teach, Artigas perceived evidence of his legacy in the curriculum of

the FAU-USP and its success.



Des ign ing d is s ent

gure 5.3

lanov a Art igas ,

AU USP. Sao Paulo,

961-69 (photograph c.

011), s tudent gra f f it i :

auhaus Weimar

x odus 1 , Hoc hs c hule

es ta l tung Ulm

xodus 2, Faculdade

e A r q ui t et u ra e

rbanism a Sao Paulo

x odus 3

However. we should remember this pedagogical structure was rooted in the

reconfigurations of the Bauhaus that Artigas studied in his visit to the United States (this

connection to the Bauhaus is a generally accepted notion, see Figure 5.3). Thus, his

resistance to United States modern corporate architecture was based on appropriating

the same system that had trained the architects of these firms. By reconfiguring the

modern architecture curriculum into a Brazilian curriculum, Artigas enacted an import

substitution operation in architecture: he replaced foreign imports with domestic

production. In other words, the architect's reappropriation of foreign pedagogy as an

element of resistance paralleled the economic policies of developmental ism.

Artigas was confronted with extreme choices: to build, and in this way

maintain some kind of agency despite serving a regime he opposed. or to resist. and

lose the ability to practise, abandoning the discipline altogether. Ultimately, he chose to

collaborate with the state in order to continue a lifetime resistance to what he viewed as

United States imperialism. To do so, he appropriated the pedagogies and technologies

of the international agents he opposed. and mobilised them into the formation of a local

modern architectural language. By adopting foreign methods to resist external modesof domination, Artigas echoed the import substitution industrialisation enforced by the

state. In doing so, he wilfully elided the more immediate. local threat of a violent and

repressive regime.

. . .



Ana Maria Leon

A partial confirmation of Artigas' admittedly congratulatory view might be found by

going back to the building itself. The FAU·USP,both as building and pedagogy, stands

as a reminder of Artigas' attempt to establish dissidence through pedagogy, resistance

through design. Most recently, the 2011 general student strike on its premises

specifically protested the continued existence of residual power structures established

by the military dictatorship (tau em greve, 2011). The present building, filled with

the protest graffiti of generations of students, points to both the pedagogy and the

architecture of a school designed for dissent.

Acknowledgements

I want to thank MIT Brazil for funding part of this research, and the FAU·USP librarians

for hosting me, Rafael Urano Frajndlich assisted with Sao Paulo research, and the MIT

interlibrary loan system located books and journals remotely. Niko Vicario helped me

think through my argument. The reviewer's comments were very useful in the final

revision, Thanks finally to Ines Weizman for convening and organising the conference

and editing the proceedings.

Notes

Most of Artiqas' texts have been compiled in Artiqas. 1981, 1997, 1989 and 2004. A significant bodyof research on this subject has been done by a series of dissertations at FAU-USP,particularly as it

involves Arquitetura Nova, the younger generation that briefly succeeded and opposed him. Costa,

2008; Guimaraes. 2006; Cunha. 2009; Pereira, 2009. For the work of Ferro, Imperio and Lefevre as

an outcome of this debate, see Arantes. 2002; Koury. 2003.

For an overview and analysis of the develoomentalist project of Kubitschek. see Sikkink. 1991,

p.122-70.

Artigas. letter to Henrique Mindlin dated 17 August 1946, in Artiqas. 1997

Artigas' return to Brazil in 1948 coincided with the foundation of two key institutions. The Museum of

Modern Art, or MAM. in which he was a founding member only to distance himself as a member of

the PCB, which considered the biennials promoted by the MAM as an instance of imperialism, and the

FAU-USP.discussed in the second part of this piece. For an institutional history of the MAM. see Le

Blanc, 2011. Caroline Jones has worked on the Sao Paulo Biennial, conceptualizing Oscar Niemeyer's

projects at Ibirapuera as a type of antropofagia of Le Corbusier's Modular. See Jones, 2013, pp. 3-36. Artfqas. 'Os Caminhos da Arquitetura Medema'. in Artiqas. 1981, p. 77. First published in

Fundamentos 24 (January 1952)

Different versions of this lecture had been delivered to the Chicago Chapter of the AlA in April 1952,

and in a visit to Japan. In Brazil it was presented to the Fourth Congress of Brazilian Architects. We

should note his use of the term 'art' refers specifically to the creative potential of the architect as an

'artist' (Gropius. 1952).

For an economic explanation of the Brazilian Miracle and its consequences in the larger Brazilian

population. see Pisblow, 1973. Fishlow explains the previous moment of economic growth under

Kubitschek operated through import substitution but discouraged exports and offset payments with

foreign investment. Thus: 'In the guise of reducing foreign dependence, it considerably increased it'

{p. 476). For a political history of twentieth-century Brazil, see Skidmore. 1967 and 1988.

During this period SOM designed the Banco de Bogota in Colombia (1958), plus buildings in

Germany and Turkey; Harrison & Abramovitz designed the United Interests Section in Havana, Cuba,1953. lACs international work focused on the Middle East but also included projects in China, Mali,

Germany, Argentina and Greece (not all built)

First published in Artigas. 'Consideracoes sobre Arquitetura Brasilelre'. AD Arquitetura e oecoreceo

7, year 2 (September-October 1954),

'The ease with which these organisations penetrate our economic structure has disastrous

reflections in our culture. In the competition of the market, they have the tendency to devalue the

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

"



Designing dissent

national contribution - a cultural contribution - presenting their own expressions as more legitimate,

based on cultural models strange to ours.' Artigas. 'A os formandos da FAU USP,' Discurso de

peraninfo na cotecac de grau dos erquitetos formandos pela FAUUSPem 1958, Acropote 244, year

21 (February 1959), 125, in Artigas, 2004, p. 72.

11 For a history of the Sao PauloPolytechnic, see Picher,2005; and Pereira,2009, pp. 9-40,

12 Comissao de Peestruturaceo. composed by Rino levi, Artigas, Abelardo de Souza and Helie de

Queiroz Duarte (Pereira,2009, p. 226).

13 The report also contrasted the successful introduction of this course in other schools in South

America, particularly in Uruguay and Chile, The objectives of the atelier course are described as the

development of graphic expression. creative sensibilities, and relating education with the realities of

practice.

14 In 1973, a 'Report on the Teachingof Architecture in Brazil'was done for UIA-UNESCO.produced by

the FAU-USP,based on the texts of ProfessorsVilanovaArtigas and Havlo Motta. This report includes

valuable insights on the alignment of the 1962 Reform with a modern curriculum. See Artigas, 1993,

144-55

15 This structure was complemented with the creation of a library, a laboratory of graphic arts and

photography. and a models office or workshop, a museum. and a school union (the GFAU- these

last two were closed in 1964)

16 Paulo Freire's pedagogical work in Brazil at the time was later summarised in his canonical text.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire, 1968). His work was influential in the development of art andpedagogy throughout South America, in particular in Brazil and in Chile, where he resided for a

period in the late 19605.17 Artists Helie Oiticica and Lygia Clark were part of the neo-concretlsts. a group focused on haptic

experience and perception founded in Rio de Janeiro in 1959 in opposition to the more abstract.

formal emphasis of the Sao Paulo Concretists. My analysis of Clark's work in the context of the

uncertain politics of late 1960s Brazilcan be found in Le6n, 2011,

18 For a description of the cultural and political environment between the military coup and the

consolidation of the dictatorship, see Schwarz, 1992,19 See Associacao dos Docentes da Universidade de Sao Pauloor ADUSP,1979. For details on the

formation of the internal commission, see ADUSP,1979, pp. 14-15; for a description of Artrqas'

arrest, see pp. 26-27

20 See Cunha, 2009, in particular 'As escolas'. pp, 114-123, Artigas also wrote a text 'Sobre escolas'I'On schools'). synthesising the history of Brazilianschools (o. 122)

21 Ferroand Lefevre started teaching at FAU-USPin 1962; Imperio started in the Visual Communication

department. Ferro was admitted as professor of History of Arts and Aesthetics, Lefevre taught

History of Contemporary Architecture, and was transferred to Project in 1969,

22 Forthe complete exchange see Artiqas. 1965: Imperio, Lefevreand Ferro 1965; Lefevre, 1966; Ferro,

1967.

23 Originally in Artigas, 'a Disenbo'. March 1967.

24 'Depoimento na FAU-USP',October 1968.25 He worked in various health projects for the architecture department of the Brazilian engineering

firm Hioroservice. and died in a car accident in Guinee-Bissau,in 1984

26 Cunha's dissertation focuses on Artigas' production during this time period (Cunha, 2009).

27 On April 1969, a decree resolved to forcibly retire 42 people working in the Federal Public

Administration, including various intellectuals and three professors including Artigas. More were

added later. The 1969 reform was led by the regime (ADUSP,1979).28 The text was published after VilanovaArtigas' death. A note states: 'This document was approved in

a meeting of the UNESCOCommission on Superior Education in Zurich. 1974',

Bibliography

Arantes. P.F., 2002. Arquitetura nova: Sergio Ferro, Fl8vio Imperio e Rodrigo Lefevre, de

Al1igas aos mutiroes. Editora 34, Sao Paulo.

Artigas. J.B.V. 1965. Uma Falsa Crise ocrooote 319. 21-22. " . _

Artiqas. J.BV, 1981, Caminhos da arquitetura, Livraria Edlt~ra Ciencias Humanes. Sao Paulo.

Artigas, J. B.V., 1989, A funrao social do arquiteto. Nobel, Sa? Paulo. .

Artqes. J.B.V., 1993. Contribuigao para 0 Relat6rio sabre Ensino de Arquitetura UIA-UNESCO.

Revista Sinopses, EdiC;ao Especial 133-137<

Artigas, J.BV, Lira, J,T.C. de, Artigas, R" Artigas, J,BV, 2004. Caminhos da arquitetura. Cosac

Naify Sao Paulo



A n a M a ri a L eo n

Artiqas. J.B.V, Puntoni, A ., Instituto Lina Bo e P.M. Bardi. Fundscao Vilanova Artigas, 1997.

VtlanovaArtigas. Blau, Lisbon; Instituto Lina Bo e P.M. Bardi, Fundacao Vilanova Artigas,Sao Paulo.

Associacao dos Docentes da Universidade de Sao Paulo (ADUSPJ, 1979. 0 Uvro Negro da

USP:0controle taeotcatco na universidede. 3rd Edition (1978), ed. Editora Brasiliense,Sao Paulo.

Costa, AI. da, 2008. Sergio Ferro: didatica e torrnacao (Master's thesis). Universidade de SaoPaulo, Sao Paulo,

Cunha, G.R. de, 2009. Uma analise da producao de Vilanova Artigas entre as anos de 1967 a

1976 (Master's thesis). Universidade de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo.

fau em greve, n.d. Nota publica de pesquisadores da Universidade de Sao Paulo sobre a crise

da USP Available at http://fauemgreve.wordpress.com/debate/textos/

Ferro, S., 1967. Arquitetura Nova. Teoriae Pretice, 1,3-15.

Ficher, S., 2005. Osarquitetos da Poli: ensino e orotisseo em Sao Paulo. EdUSp Sao Paulo.

Fishlow, A, 1973. Brazil's Economic Miracle. The World Today 29, 474--481.

Freire, P, 1968. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Seabury Press, New York.

Gropius W.. 1952. The architect within an industrialized society (version 2). Presented at the

Chicago Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, Chicago. Walter Gropius Papers(MS Ger 208). Houghton Library, Harvard University

Gropius. W.. 1954. 0 Arquiteto na sociecada industrial. Presented at the Premio Sao

Paulo prize, Sao Paulo. Walter Gropius Papers (MS Ger 208). Houghton Library, HarvardUniversity.

Imperio, F . , Lefevre, R., and Ferro, S.. 1965. Notas score Arquitetura. Acr6pale 319. 23.

Jones, CA. 2013. Anthropophagy in Sao Paulo's Cold War. ARTMargins 2, 3-36,

Koury, A .P ., 2003. Grupo erqotteture nova: Flavia Imperio, Rodrigo Lefevre e Sergio Ferro.

Romano Guerra Editora. EDUSP-Editora da Universidade de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo.

Le Blanc, A.L., 2011. Tropical modernisms: Art and architecture in Rio de Janeiro in the 1950s

(PhD thesis). University of Southern California ..

Lefevre, R., 1966. Urna crise em desenvoJvimento. Acrooote 333, 22-23,

Leon, AM .. 2011 Lygia Clark: between Spectator and Participant. Thresholds 39, 45-53.

Pereira, J.A, 2009. Desenho industrial e arquitetura no ensino da FAU USP (1948-1968).Universidade de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo.

Schwarz, R., 1992. Culture and Politics in Brazil, 1964-1969, in: Misplaced Ideas: Essays onBrazilian Culture. Verso, London.

Sikkink. K., 1991. Ideas and Institutions: Developmentalism in BraZIl and Argentina. CornellUniversity Press. Ithaca, NY.

Skidmore. TE., 1967. Politics in Brazil, 1930-1964; An Experiment in Democracy. OxfordUniversity Press, New York,

Skidmore, T .

E., 1988. The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil, 1964-85. Oxford University Press,New York.

Tafuri, M. and Dal Co, F . , 1986. Modern Architecture, 2. Electa/Rizzoli, New York.

Designing Dissent

Documents

Transcript of Designing Dissent