Architectural Knowledge and Writing • Marina Lathouri
Writing Exercise: Book Proposal
Dear Publisher, I am writing to you in order to present my manuscript entitled UK/BRAZIL, THE TRACES OF A BRUTALIST CONNECTION for your consideration. One could understand the Brutalist architecture as a fashion – and even exhausted - subject. However, it is one of the most striking yet misunderstood trends of international architectural panorama, and many of the publications about the theme reduces this architectural movement to a generic icon. This book aims not only at evoking its relevance with accuracy, but also at verifying and defining a very specific question: in wich ways the British post-war architecture influenced the Brazilian Paulista Brutalism of Vilanova Artigas, Paulo Mendes da Rocha and Lina Bo Bardi, to mention but a few? Studies of British post-war architecture present useful parallels with Brazilian architecture, which also had a prominent Brutalist movement, although it has long been neglected in Brazilian thought. The few Brazilian historians interested in this movement have been affirming that the Paulista architecture was laregely influenced by British Brutalism, and the same analysts claim that it consists of an important subject yet to be researched. Therefore, the proposed book would deepen the investigation on the extent of the influence of British architects and thinkers, such as Alison and Peter Smithson, Denys Lasdun, James Stirling, Reyner Banham, over the Paulista School. The architectural narrative would address the moment of emergence (1950s) and consolidation (1960s) of the movement in England, avoiding to incur in simplifications, clichés and a priori ideas. The book will present an in-depth analysis of Brutalism theoretical foundations, investigating in particular the British Brutalism and New Towns Acts and its precedents in the UK and in Brazil. In addition, it will present a systematic study of specific cases which illustrate the universe in question. It will be necessary to clarify that not all examples of exposed concrete buildings and not all buildings built in that period are Brutalists. This book, thus intends to establish conceptual and temporal limits and definitely eliminate misleading definitions that bound the theme. From 1960s onwards, the Brutalist architecture internationally reached its peak as an aesthetic style and was understood as a new kind of “International Style”, or as a late development of the Modern Movement, preceding the crisis of the post-modern condition. Despite the international Ana Paula Beghetto Pacheco
Architectural Knowledge and Writing • Marina Lathouri
Writing Exercise: Book Proposal
spread of Brutalism as a style, this book will focus on the evolution of the English repertoire due to its unique characteristics: the radical political changes in England after the Second World War; the large-scale programme of reconstruction of its main cities; and the concern with collective housing for the working-class population, which, somehow, was devolved an ethical force based on efficiency, equality, opportunities and sense of justice. This condition is reflected on the buildings to be illustrated and examined in the book. Finally, the book should demonstrate in a systematic way how not only the aesthetic of British Brutalism spread worldwide, as generally perceived, but also did its ethics. It will analyze the Brutalist architectural design in regard to form, program, technology and construction system, as well as the sociopolitical frame in both countries. The target audience is comprised mainly of academics, architects, architectural historians, architectural critics.
Thank you in advance for your consideration. Yours sincerely, Ana Paula Pacheco
Ana Paula Beghetto Pacheco