Corsi_paulo Mendes Da Rocha-architetto by archea archea

UniversitĂ degli studi di Genova FacoltĂ di Architettura Corso di Laboratorio di Progettazione V A.A 2012-2013 Prof. Arch. Marco Casamonti Arch. Mattia Cadenazzi_ Arch. Federica Poggio

Paulo Mendes Da Rocha

Camilla Corsi Matricola: 3253340

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1_Paulo Mendes Da Rocha _ Image posted on behance 2_Paulo Mendes Da Rocha _ Image posted on behance 3_Paulo Mendes Da Rocha _ Image posted on inhabitat 4_Paulo Mendes Da Rocha _ Photographer Enea Pieraccini

Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects. Autori _ Luigi Snozzi, Annette Spiro, Maria Isabel Villac Editore _ Niggli www.pritzkerprize.com/

“Unlike many people who are afraid of poverty, I have always been attracted to it, to simple things, without knowing why. Not hardship, but the humility of essential things. I think everything superfluous is irritating. Everything that is not necessary becomes grotesque, especially in our time.” Paulo Mendes Da Rocha nasce a Vitoria, da madre italiana e da un ingegnere brasiliano. Trascorre la sua infanzia e la sua gioventù nel circondario di San Paolo. Qui intraprende anche gli studi di architettura e nel 1954 si laurea presso la Mackenzie Architecture School. La facoltà in quel periodo è legata al modello storicista e Mendes Da Rocha fa parte di un gruppo di studenti interessati all’architettura moderna. La conoscenza di un altro grande personaggio dell’architettura brasiliana, Vilanova Artigas, consolida la posizione filosofica di Da Rocha. L’architettura proposta da Vilanova Artigas lo influenza dal suo primo grande progetto, la palestra del Clube Atletico Paulistano. Già nella sua prima opera, Paulo fa uso del cemento armato, di grandi spazi aperti, e strutture razionali, tra gli elementi che caratterizzeranno la scuola paulista sopracitata. Nel 1961 Paulo Mendes Da Rocha diviene professore della facoltà di Archiettura, è un momento fondamentale per l’architetto Da Rocha, coinvolto nel dibattito sul ruolo sociale dell’architetto.

Da Rocha entra a far parte della Avanguardia di San Paolo e diviene noto come creatore del cosidetto Movimento Brutalista Paulista i cui lavori enfatizzavano una dimensione etica dell’architettura, anche con l’uso di semplici forme e materiali. Il governo militare instauratosi nel 1964 non vede di buon occhio le idee del Movimento di Da Rocha e dal 1969 non gli è permesso tenere lezioni. Un esilio dalla cattedra che durerà fino al 1980, e nel 1998 gli viene assegnata la cattedra di professore ordinario di progetto architettonico a San Paolo. Da quel momento in poi riceve una serie di premi e riconoscimenti internazionali tra cui spiccano il Premio Mies van der Rohe per l’America Latina per il progetto di ristrutturazione della Pinacoteca dello stato di San Paolo (premiato nel 2001) e il Premio Pritzker (nel 2006). Paulo Mendes Da Rocha è da molti considerato il miglior architetto brasiliano. Da Rocha ha dedicato la sua carriera alla creazione di edifici e spazi, guidato dal senso di responsabilità verso gli utenti delle sue costruzioni e della società.Il gesto architettonico promosso da Paulo Mendes da Rocha, consta di intenti progettuali che si propone un “projeto de humanidade”. Da Rocha afferma che “la prima e primordiale architettura è la geografia”.

Le opere di Paulo Mendes finiscono per caratterizzarsi per un’attitudine rigida, ben posizionata sul territorio: l’architetto pensa che il dominio del luogo, sia mediante l’alterazione della topografia, sia con una completa ridefinizione di se stesso per una azione dei flussi di circolazione nei dintorni, è un elemento fondamentale nell’espressione del dominio e dell’integrazione degli uomini con la natura. La Scuola Paulista, nonostante sia criticata negli ultimi decenni per il suo alto costo sociale ed economico, si preoccupava essenzialmente di promuovere un’architettura “ chiara, pulita, e socialmente responsabile “, e presentava soluzioni formali che si pensava avrebbero permesso un immediato apprendimento, da parte degli utenti dell’architettura, degli ideali di economia e sintesi spaziale esposti nei suoi elementi formali, all’interno di un raziocinio che come convenzione venne chiamato di verità strutturale dell’architettura. La sue opere secondo molti critici sono caratterizzate da un “ raziocinio di portici e piani “. Di fatto, in vari dei suoi progetti, la piena configurazione spaziale si dà tramite un rapido gioco strutturale, promosso dal dominio compositivo di elementi costruttivi tradizionali (pilastri e travi, così come pareti semplici). I progetti nei quali più si nota questa caratteristica sono quelli del museo brasiliano di scultura, e di alcune residenze. Quella di Mendes Da Rocha è un’opera nella quale traspare una preoccupazione verso un’architettura che sintetizza se stessa e si esprime con i dettagli costruttivi rigorosamente studiati (Mies van Der Rohe), o tramite il cemento apparente alleato dei grandi spazi nei quali la relazione individuo-spazio è ora intima e monumentale (Vilanova Artigas), o con un’architettura formalista procurando che si noti la funzionalità (Le Corbusier - International Style), in cerca di spazi che si suppone incentivino la convivenza umana, all’interno di un progetto di città e di società (Rino Levi, Artigas, Alvar Alto, etc). Attivo anche nel settore degli interiors, è nota la sedia di sua creazione denominata “Paulistano”, attualmente disponibile in tre diverse versioni di design, due sedie ed una chaise lounge, che mettono insieme tecniche moderne di produzione industriale con la funzionalità ed il confort. Paulo Mendes Da Rocha è stato il secondo architetto brasiliano, dopo Oscar Niemeyer a ricever il nobel per l’archiettura, il Pritzker Architecture Prize, nell’anno 2006. Nella motivazione è sintetizzata l’opera filosofica di questo architetto: “ gli si conferisce il Pritzker Architecture Prize, per la profonda comprensione della poetica dello spazio degli edifici da egli firmati nel corso della sua lunga carriera di oltre sessanta anni ”.

01_ Stühle

06_ Casa Fernando Millán

11_ Casa Antônio Junqueira

16_ Museu de Arte de Vitória

02_ Ginásio do Clube Atlético Paulistano 07_ Casa James Francis King

12_ Capela de São Pedro

17_ Praça do Patriarca e Viaduto do Chá

03_ Casa Paulo Mendes Da Rocha

08_ Núcleo de edução Infantil

13_ Loja Forma

18_ Aquaurio Municipal de Santos

04_ Edifício Guaimbê

09_ Estádio Serra Dourada

14_ Casa Antônio Gerassi

19_ Praça dos Museus da USP

05_ Casa Mário Mazetti

10_ Museu de Arte Contemporânea

15_ Museu Brasileiro da Escultura

20_ Paris, Boulevard do Esporte

project: Stühle typology: design architect: P. Mendes da Rocha realization: 1957-1985 address: Sãn Paulo

project:Clube Atlético Paulistano typology: Palazzetto dello sport architect: P. Mendes da Rocha realization: 1958 address: Sãn Paulo

project: Casa P. M. Da Rocha typology: House architect: P. Mendes da Rocha realization: 1960 address: Sãn Paulo

project: Edifício Guaimbê typology: Edificio residenziale architect: P. Mendes da Rocha realization: 1964 address: Sãn Paulo

project: Casa Mário Mazetti typology: House architect: P. Mendes da Rocha realization: 1970 address: Sãn Paulo

project: Casa Fernando Millán typology: House architect: P. Mendes da Rocha realization: 1970 address: Sãn Paulo

project: Casa J. Francis King typology: House architect: P. Mendes da Rocha realization: 1972 address: Sãn Paulo

project: Scuola di Jardim Calux typology: School architect: P. Mendes da Rocha realization: 1972 address: São Bernardo

project: Estádio Serra Dourada typology: Statium architect: P. Mendes da Rocha realization: 1973 address: Goiânia

project: M. Arte Contemporânea typology: Museum architect: P. Mendes da Rocha realization: 1975 address: Sãn Paulo

project: Casa Antônio Junqueira typology: House architect: P. Mendes da Rocha realization: 1977 address: Sãn Paulo

project: Capela de São Pedro typology: Cappella architect: P. Mendes da Rocha realization: 1987 address: Palácio da Boa vista

project: Loja Forma typology: Showroom architect: P. Mendes da Rocha realization: 1987 address: Sãn Paulo

project: Casa Antônio Gerassi typology: House architect: P. Mendes da Rocha realization: 1988 address: Sãn Paulo

project: M. Brasileiro da Escultura typology: Museum architect: P. Mendes da Rocha realization: 1988 address: Sãn Paulo

project: Museu de Arte de Vitória typology: Museum architect: P. Mendes da Rocha realization: 1991 address: Vitòria

project: Praça do Patriarca typology: Piazza architect: P. Mendes da Rocha realization: 1992 address: São Paulo

project: Aquario Municipal typology: Aquario architect: P. Mendes da Rocha realization: 1991 address: Santos

project: Praça dos Museus USP typology: Piazza architect: P. Mendes da Rocha realization: 2000 address: Sãn Paulo

project: Boulevard do Esporte typology: Urban project architect: P. Mendes da Rocha realization: 2000 address: Parigi

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project: Stühle typology: design realization: 1957-1985 address: Sãn Paulo

1_Vista 2_Vista 3_Scansione da libro “Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects”

The design of the Paulistano chair resulted from a commission issued by an interior decorating company awarded the tender to supply funiture to the atletic club. The requirement for a new chair design emerged in the course of plans to furnish certain parts of the club,areas which has been designed by Gregori Warchavchik. A basic requirement for the design was that it must challenge the equation between modern industrial production and pure functionality of the product. The design concept amounts to a statement that industrialization does not represent a new phenomenon, but rather the continuing pursuit of issues originally addressed in another context, for instance in the workshops of bygone craftsmen: issues deriving, moreover, from the working of human sensibility rather than simply from processes of manufacture. The design combines flexible metal members - cold-drawn helical springs from the Villares industrial complex - with a Native American fabric made from Tucum palm fibers,

BIBLIOGRAFIA| SITOGRAFIA Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects. Autori _ Luigi Snozzi, Annette Spiro, Maria Isabel Villac Editore _ Niggli

widely used for making hammocks. The idea was to meld an age-old invention with a new industrial product. A basket, just a little basket, is suspanced, on a single continuous tube which the springs keep rocking gently. Later on, two further chairs were designed for Nucleon: a recliner and an office version of the Paulistano chair. The latter has a horizontally rotating cylinder. The three steel spring pieces it is made of fit like the stones in an arch into the cylinders template. In this chair too, the seat material is “draped” directly over the frame. The recliner can be adjusted to four position. It is made of two strips of flexible steel connected by circular section rods, which lock the various positions. The tubular construction rests on a stable base, likewise made from circular-section rods. Tha gap between the steel strips is used to adjust the position of the synthetic neck support.

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project:Clube Atlético Paulistano typology: Palazzetto dello sport realization: 1958 address: Sãn Paulo

Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects. Autori _ Luigi Snozzi, Annette Spiro, Maria Isabel Villac Editore _ Niggli

This 2000-spectator project was conceived and executed as an entry in an open competition judged by Rino Levi, Plinio Croce and Rubens Carneiro Viana. At São Paulo’s VI th Biennale it was awarded the major International Prize of the President of the Republic by a judging panel including Alfonso Eduardo Reidly and Julian Ferris Venezuela. The structure is of reinforced concrete, with steel cables suspending the metal roof. The facility was designed for frequent use, as is indicated by banqueting rooms along the Rua Augusta as well as by the Club’s internal garden areas. Its overall form generates a sense of lightness and trasparency.The building is distinguished by great clarity of structure. Its spaces have a certain “civic” quality. A long rectangular platform - serving as an esplanade and accomodating peripheral activities - has

the actual arena at its center. This is a reinforced concrete ring structure; its six load-bearing supports detach themselves from the space and, pre-tensioned by steel cables, take the load of the central metal element. The combination of these two techniques gives the buildings lightness and three-dimensionality, and adds a nuance of technology. The road, bustling with traffic and local business activity, the esplanade and the club’s internal gardens have been made into inter-relating areas designed to encourage other activities not necessarily related to sports programs. This has been achieved without loss of visual perspective. Circulation is via easy-graded ramps crossing the main axis of the sports hall and giving access to the upper platform.

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project: Casa P. M. Da Rocha typology: House realization: 1960 address: Sãn Paulo

1_Scansione da libro “Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects” 2_Scansione da libro “Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects” 3_Scansione da libro “Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects” 4_Scansione da libro “Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects” 5_Scansione da libro “Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects”

Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects. Autori _ Luigi Snozzi, Annette Spiro, Maria Isabel Villac Editore _ Niggli

The house was designed togheter with a second one. The two buildings are structurally indentical save for minor variations in the ground plan. Embedded in the natural slope of tha small hill above the Rio Pinheiros, the two structures are linked with the adjoining roads by the design of their overhanging gardens, which give directly onto the road, the plants unfluring along the level of the upper story. With the objective of maximizing the efficiency of the construction process, this project involved a serious attempt to sound out the practicability of using prefabbricated and mass-produced reinforced concrete components. The guiding principles of the design and associated detail work were rationalization and co-ordination.

The single story design, resting on stilts, is fluent and well articulated in character and aims to utilize the distinctive hillside location to generate a dialog with the gardens and neighboring roads.

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project: Edifício Guaimbê typology: Edificio residenziale realization: 1964 address: Sãn Paulo

Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects. Autori _ Luigi Snozzi, Annette Spiro, Maria Isabel Villac Editore _ Niggli

The structure of this building consists of reinforced concrete side walls, which provide for interior spatial continuity and create unusual extra spaces through the use of non-rectilinear walls. The surface receiving the most intense solar radiation is protected by a sunscreen designed exclusively for this project. These elements, fronting on the Rua Hadock Lobo, not only regulate the light, but also shape the space appropriately. The openings on the building’s west facade, with their aligned concrete slats, unify the space and the rhythm of the interior.

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project: Casa Mário Mazetti typology: House realization: 1970 address: Sãn Paulo

Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects. Autori _ Luigi Snozzi, Annette Spiro, Maria Isabel Villac Editore _ Niggli

Casa Mario Mazetti - much like the works of Fernando Millan and James Francis King - is an “implantation” study, both in an urban sense and in regard to the morphological transformation of the site. The house nestles against a steep slope on the margin of Pacaembù valley. An adjacent building is located on the floor of the valley, fronting on the Avenida Pacaembù. This structure is surrounded by a retaining wall, which was created to level off the site, but which can in no way be treated as load-bearing. This meant finding a special solution to permit the building of casa Mazetti site and that of its neightbor. In response to the peculiarities of the terrain and the resulting problems of load distribution, a self-supporting structure was employed, all on the casa Mazetti plot with supports at four points. The proposed structure consists of two bearing walls, each supported by two pillars, far enought apart from each other to avert any possibility of loads impacting on the large retaining wall of the lower part of the building. The span of both the concrete roof and the floor is 16m between the two bearing walls, which are reinforced by beams at intervals of 1.213 m.

The proposed structure creates a fully independent site and a house resting upon four supports, allowing an unencumbered view of the valley’s vast landscape. This structural approach also influences the spatial organization of the house. The planning of the project took the nature of the terrain _ independent of the building-plot - into account, with the idea that, once the load problem had been resolved, the terrain should influence the layout of the house’s domestic spaces. The floor plan is very simple: the basic separation between the bed rooms wing and the living and working area, with their extensive view over the valley, is achieved by means of natural light,

which enters through a skylight and creates a divide running the whole lenght of the house. The dividing line generated by the skyline is repeated in the ceiling in the form of a water-permeable area that can be used as a garden - a place of passage, so to speak.

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project: Casa Fernando Millán typology: House realization: 1970 address: Sãn Paulo

Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects. Autori _ Luigi Snozzi, Annette Spiro, Maria Isabel Villac Editore _ Niggli

The Millan house was also built on a slope - a smell hill on a tiny site. The house’s interior space was created by excavation, and is in effect the inside of a box formed by retaining walls. The house’s form derives in part from the excavation of the land and in part from a “garden” estabilished on the roof.

The reinforced concrete roof of this house, as of others, received no special post-installation impregnation treatment. The concrete was cast as a single slab and treated with water. Water is essential both to the operation of the house - in particular, the insulating film of water provides thermal protection for the concrete ceiling and the living space - and to the landscaping of the yard, which has a superb view across Sao Paulo city. The term “landscape” certainly applies to the environs too: the street, Avenida Circular do Bosque, lies within a nature reserve, so that the garden and the city’s park together form a unity.

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project: Casa J. Francis King typology: House realization: 1972 address: Sãn Paulo

Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects. Autori _ Luigi Snozzi, Annette Spiro, Maria Isabel Villac Editore _ Niggli

The king house is situated on a 7000 mq piece of properties with a slope beginning at the street and a dense stand of mature trees.

Although to a large extent floating free og the ground, the bulding seeks the most appropriete way of finding contact with the ground, namely by means of a single entrance that leads to a level esplanade, where the parking lot, recreational area and swimming pool are located. The design layout renders ancillary structures superfluous, because the building consists of a single unit rising from the esplanade, irregularly but in harmony with the nature curves of the land. Resting on the pillars, the house has its central focus in a patio space, whose high and airy location affords the residents the closest possible contact with the copse and the surrounding landscape.

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project: Scuola di Jardim Calux typology: School realization: 1972 address: São Bernardo

Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects. Autori _ Luigi Snozzi, Annette Spiro, Maria Isabel Villac Editore _ Niggli

In the course of planning the advance project for the Jardim Calux community kindergarten in Sao Bernardo do Campo, there was some discussion of broad ideas on the topic of kindergarten projects. Some buildings which have the character of a school , complete whit classrooms, corridors and appropriate service area, turn their gardens into paved courtyards, causing the vary concept of a “garden” to fall by thw wayside. The core idea behind the kindergarten project is the child’s actual learning process whitin its own milieu, and the awakening of its curiosity in the development of the child’s associative processes in the contexts of its first experience of organize communal life, and taking as axiomatic that the universe to be learnt about and interpreted is that of Nature. The unique learning task for childrenis to be able to imagine and develop ideas about things such as nature, the earth, water, the physical universe. This process is fostered by the observation of real things around us, by caring for animals and plants, tending to gardens, building things with the “nature” environment by means of an extensive courtyard landscaped whit sand, gravel, stones and even a miniature “lake”. Above the courtyard, there is a large hall 800sq.m. in area, whit semi-enclosed sections for teaching, the library, model-making, the museum and the sanititary facilities. The building has windows that can be opened in a variety of ways, rather than conventional ones, and features a traslucent roof. There is a precise and yet harmonious transition between outside and inside and the atmosphere here is not very different that found above the treetops. The design is a very single one whitout sophisticated details, dictated diectly by the basic reinforced concrete structure.

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project: Estádio Serra Dourada typology: Statium realization: 1973 address: Goiânia

This project took into consideration two particular objectives regarded as significant for sport-related projects in general, and already featured in earlier designs by Brazilian architects. The first was to create a foyer space for the stadium, thus deviating from the concept of a closed structure; and the second was to open up the stadium volume to the surrounding landscape, via its principal axis, thus creating the flexibility to allow additional activities and events.

This design successfully balances the structure, which has partially roofed stands, and creates a general-purpose space accomodating access, bars, cloakrooms, ticket sales and community services.

BIBLIOGRAFIA| SITOGRAFIA Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects. Autori _ Luigi Snozzi, Annette Spiro, Maria Isabel Villac Editore _ Niggli

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project: M. Arte Contemporânea typology: Museum realization: 1975 address: Sãn Paulo

Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects. Autori _ Luigi Snozzi, Annette Spiro, Maria Isabel Villac Editore _ Niggli

In the description of the areas making up the complex which houses the entire museum - one immediately senses the first architectural principle behind this project: namely to enable the general public and artists to benefit from its rooms, its resources, documentation and so on, thereby ensuring that the museum is kept in active use and simultaneously the preservation of its precious holdings.

As there is a prospect that some of the university’s other museum - notably those of Anthropology and Archaeology, and of History an Geography - may be brought together on the campus whit those already located there, the project envisages the sharing of common facilities. This entailethat the plan for the “museum laboratories”, as well as for general facilities, had to take a form compatible with the future expansion of and linking the museums,in anticipation that university research will take on an increasingly multidisciplinary profile. With this set of criteria as its starting-point, the concept sets out a clear structure for the complex as a whole: the museum is to serve as an exhibition space, it is to feature as one of the buildings of the central square, where it will play a prominent role, yet relate harmoniously to the other buildings planned for this area, namely the Aula Magna and the Documentation Center. The museum building houses all the functions of the so-called “laboratories” and the present general facilities - lecture theaters, restaurant, coar check, storage areas, labs and the like - in a modular structure capable of expansion in line with the university’s development program, and forming an inner courtyard on the campus as an annex. The construction plan allowed for the two facilities to be erected indipendently of one another. This gives the university great freedom in phasing the construction sche-

dule.The project for the laboratory and service buildings involves topographical changes which have implications not only for the visual integration on the new structure in to the central square (Praca Maior), but also for the financing and efficiency of the constructure schedule. The opening along the retaining wall also functions as a ventilation and lighting system, protecting the museum’s inventory while simultaneously producting the microclimate necessary for the laboratories. In a similar manner, the concrete roof - although separate from tha actual garden guarantees weather proofing and thermal insulation. In addition to these aspects, which are of fundamental importance for the museum project, a further important advantage is the design’s success in integrating an extensive facility sensitively into landscape. The gardens and the paved areas impose visual order and lend prominance to the exhibition building, regardless of its purpose and use, exactly where the monumental power of the architecture can unfold to fullest effect.

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project: Casa Antônio Junqueira typology: House realization: 1977 address: Sãn Paulo

Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects. Autori _ Luigi Snozzi, Annette Spiro, Maria Isabel Villac Editore _ Niggli

The special feature of this house is that , over and above the usual residential features, space was required for a study and a 10000 - volume library. The solution proposed was a pavilion adjoining the main house. The landscape, which features the Serra da Mantiqueira and the Pico do Jaraguà as backdrop, is the main consideration behind the location of the vista points and the hanging garden, which is private to the library.

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project: Capela de São Pedro typology: Cappella realization: 1987 address: Palácio da Boa vista

Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects. Autori _ Luigi Snozzi, Annette Spiro, Maria Isabel Villac Editore _ Niggli

The intention was clear from the very beginning: to link the chapel with the palace, rather than having it stand somewhere forlorn and isolated in the gardens. It was therefore decided to situate the chapel close to the existing building, with its inner courtyard faceing the frontal esplanade of the palace and to build the nave out from the south retaining wall. The proposed location made it possible to incorporate a welcome additional feature, a private access route in the form of a small tunnel linking the south wing back stairs to the anteroom outside the sacresty. With this feature, tha chapel can be deemed to be an “annex” - an historic architectural form - and can be built as such.

The design is notable for its handling of volume, the chapel’s outline standing out with simplicity, firmness, and great clarity against its background, the peaks of the Mantiqueira mountain range. The chapel is vigorous and simple. Although in the fullest sense a sacred building, its entire structure rests on a single support.

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project: Loja Forma typology: Showroom realization: 1987 address: Sãn Paulo

Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects. Autori _ Luigi Snozzi, Annette Spiro, Maria Isabel Villac Editore _ Niggli

The project undertaken for Forma, a retailer of furniture and international designer goods, investigates what can be achieved through an understated, undramatic, yet radical architectural approach, specifically aiming at maximum visibility from outside, while ensuring minimal distractioninside - as in a museum. Because of its location on one Sao Paulo’s principal streets, it is proposed that the shop be integrated into the existing urban dynamic, and that it should present a precise relations dimensions of the front facade to the eye. This makes it possible to identify what function the facade represents, and even to register this when passing by. The building is marked by its clarity and simplicity of structure. The two load-bearing “wall pillars”, made of concrete, are in fact hollow tower, housing the services and some ancillary accomodation spaces. The span width between the pillars is designed to create the area needed for the forniture store’s displays. Access is by a restractable staircase.

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project: Casa Antônio Gerassi typology: House realization: 1988 address: Sãn Paulo

Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects. Autori _ Luigi Snozzi, Annette Spiro, Maria Isabel Villac Editore _ Niggli

The various enterprises within the State of Sao Paulo that manufacture reinforced and tensioned stressed concrete components represent a huge potential both in technology and increase efficiency in the constructionindustry. The system that have been developed are limited by binding agreements between the manufacturers, such as the range of individual components which may be sold. This poses a problem for architects, who have to cope with the consequent limitations on design, devising new solutions and new combinations in order to create appropriate spaces. 1

The development of diverse techniques of component utilization is one of the most positive things to emerge from the fusion of formal invention and building technology. This is stimulating and enjoyable work, as can be seen from the simple example of the clarly structured and well proportioned Casa Antônio Gerassi. The assembly of the structure, comprising supports, prefabricated beams and concrete decks, was completed within four days, showing that this approach to construction permits optimal working efficiency on site.

The result was an operation that was easy to manage at every stage: this was true not only for the main structure, but also for the sealing, the masonry work in artificial stone, the window and door frames, as well as the electrical installations and plumbing.

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project: M. Brasileiro da Escultura typology: Museum realization: 1988 address: Sãn Paulo

Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects. Autori _ Luigi Snozzi, Annette Spiro, Maria Isabel Villac Editore _ Niggli

Located in a residential quarter af Sao Paulo, the MUBE was originally conceived as a museum of sculpture and ecology. The concept envisage the setting up of exchange programs between the MUBE and its near neighbor, the Museum of Light and Sound, supplementing the latter’s cultural activities. This led to the idea that the new museum should portray certain special feature of the landscape - water feature, a large grove of trees, bromeliads and indigenous flower - within a characteristic Brazilian garden, designed by the landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx. 1

The museum was also to house the city’s sculpture collection, taking responsibility for its documentation and subsequent curatorship. In the same field, there was also a plan to mount a large-scale cultural project involving the restoration and relocation of the city’s sculptural artifacts and the organizing of temporary exhibitions within the museum complex.

With these consideration in mind, it is possible to see the Museum of Sculpture as a garden with a large shaded area and a sunken open-air theater. The main building is not visible from outside except through a portal, symbolic guardian of the garden as well as reference point and a creator of scale for the observer approaching the sculptures. This simple form of protection, a type of loggia or portal, is planned to be 12 meters wide, with a span of 60 meters. Taking advantage of the differences in level at the perimeter of the property, the design present the museum in a sense as a false basement facing inwards and adopts the form of the surface-level terrain.

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project: Museu de Arte de Vitória typology: Museum realization: 1991 address: Vitòria

Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects. Autori _ Luigi Snozzi, Annette Spiro, Maria Isabel Villac Editore _ Niggli

The original intention underlying these studies was to house the Natur-Krajcberg Foundation, but this area was later abbandoned. Overlooking the sea and gardens, on the beatches of the Canto in Vitoria by the Pedras das Andorinhas (Swallow Rocks), the strolling pedestrian enjoys an unrestricted view of the spellbinding landscape. The airy building is raised on pillars, which feature interruptions and differing shapes, like the pavillion in Osaka, although the “windows” here are orientated toward the ground. 1

It was initially intended to make the supports by recycling unwanted steel piles from the former ore terminal at the end of the aby. The Museum of Art is a large building with an exhibition area, featuring two extensions for a theater and the service installations. The project was developed in cooperation with the renowned architect Francisco Alexandre Feu Rosa, who is also a native of Vitòria.

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project: Praça do Patriarca typology: Piazza realization: 1992 address: São Paulo

The re-shaping and enhancement of Sao Paulo’s city center gives rise to interesting questions about the interdipendency of ideas and visual forms, and about a renaissance in urban architecture. The task at hand is not more restoration; it consists rather in creating a new design, one that will take up, nurture and articulate the prctices and the urban symbols of contemporary life. With a view to the renovation and regeneration of this district, with ita strategic and cultural significance for both the city’s history and its present-day vitality, it is proposed to undertake a major re-organization of traffic routes and relocation of bus stops. The Viaduto do Chà, with its 240 meters lenght, serves as the bus station. It’s protected by a lightweight roof elementof steel and glass - a solution that was proposed by the city council as early

BIBLIOGRAFIA| SITOGRAFIA Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects. Autori _ Luigi Snozzi, Annette Spiro, Maria Isabel Villac Editore _ Niggli

as 1898. The original paving of the Parca do Patriarca was restored, the Alfredo Ceschiatti sculpture strategically relocated and the access to the Prestes Maia Passage under the viaduct re-roofed. This architectural aspect is the most important part of the entire operation, because it prompts a dialog with the scale to which the historic city was built, and, at the same time, creates a city square on a scale which is sympathetic to the human perspective of the pedestrian. A suspended roof canopy, not touching the ground but supported by an architrave, is proposed as a portal for the Square. Conversely, it also serves as a framework for the views and open spaces. Both parts have an appropriate character: lightweight, white, somewhat precarious in apparance, provoking unexpected sensations.

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project: Aquario Municipal de Santos typology: Aquario realization: 1991 address: Santos

Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects. Autori _ Luigi Snozzi, Annette Spiro, Maria Isabel Villac Editore _ Niggli

The HIstoric acquarium in Santos was an urgent need of restoration if it were not to be lost for ever. However, the existing aquarium structure was not suitable for the installation of improved technology; only the “place” could still be used, as a kind of memorial to what had once been. It was also essential that the project should involve comprehensing development of the locality, embracing a whole stretch of coastline of about 500 m, to become the “city Aquarium Gardens”.To provide for future expansion, the following design requirements were identified: realignment of the road skirting the site, and utilization, if practicable, of any space gained by land reclamation from sea; development of a design bringing the aquarium’s interior and exterior spaces into genuine dialog; maximum flexibility in the use of the facilities, including restaurant, auditorium, information center, library and laboratory; a clearly defined area for technical services and maintenance, with adjoining pier; a helicopter lending pad; a communications center serving the Institude of Oceanography in association with the fort situated in front of it, which provides a tourist attraction. With these stipulations in mind, the project envisages a number of indipendent, conceptually distinct zones. There is a main pavillion, its structure so determined by the dialectic of its various functions as to make it an architectural feature sui generis. It comprises of the following parts: a tower housing from it across a series of aquarium features. Here, the aquaria are large pools sunk into the surrounds, or small tanks, clad externally - on the public side with sheet metal. In the second phase of construction, a pavillion was added to form an enclosing structure. It has two mutually independent load-bearing walls, between which the metal latticework of the ceiling is assembled. The service ducts are freely suspended from the latticework. The two outer enclosing walls are assembled

acoustically insulated fiber external and metal paneling internally; it is intended to suggest a natural (rather than manmade) structure. Inside, the atmosphere is similar to that of a picture gallery: a realm for the imagination. This feeling is enhanced by the configuration of the “windows”, which provide views though to the aquaria side and, by the constant play of reflections from the sunlight,create the sensation of being completely submerged in water. These water areas form a natural separation element and give rise to two different levels or reflecting water. The light coming in has to be kept very subdued, maintaining the impression of perpetual penumbra, in order for the aquaria tp begin blow. The two exterior zones on the transverse axis are complementary. The one on the east side is based on the idea of a public path, and features a water area, which, when seen from outside, is a “water garden” and, when seen from within, affords a special view and is reflected in the main pavilion. The zone on the west side is land reclaimed from the sea, and intended for major projects in the longer-term future - live shows, special large-scale habitat exhibits, large fauna, and a restaurant and a cafeteria for staff as well as the public.

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project: Praça dos Museus USP typology: Piazza realization: 2000 address: Sãn Paulo

Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects. Autori _ Luigi Snozzi, Annette Spiro, Maria Isabel Villac Editore _ Niggli

The Museum of Ethnology and Zoology and the Science Museum, which make up this triple complex, are meant to provide a meeting-place linking the university with the inhabitants of Sao Paulo.The architectural issuehere is how to devisea layout which will segregate research activity, with the space it needs, from areas open to the public. The aim was to create a complex of buildings that together retain the character of a single Museum.

This is the point of departure in the plan for a suspencedgallery comprising reception and general visitors services. It gives access successively to the respective exhibition areas, located in the three adjacent towers. The arrangement of the museum in three towers and the separate hydraulic elevators for the public, services, and research enables the visitor flow to circulate without disruption to the other functions. In this way, the museum visitors can enjoy not only the suspanced gallery with its panoramic views of the university town and countryside around, but also have the run of the exhibition rooms in the tower, the three roofed plazas, the gardens, cafes, and small lecture theatres. The scientists and their research are accommodated in the inner depths of the towers and in the basement service areas. The layout is designed to be extremely flexible, allowing for detailed adjustment to the building specific functions during the future project’s development. The idea is to create a spacious and ceremonial area designed to respond to the mood of serenity and reflection engendered by this museum and its buildings, dedicated as they are to scientific research and to the active intellectual encouragement of young people, the students of the University of Sao Paulo.

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project: Boulevard do Esporte typology: Urban project realization: 2000 address: Parigi

Paulo Mendes Da Rocha. Works and Projects. Autori _ Luigi Snozzi, Annette Spiro, Maria Isabel Villac Editore _ Niggli

The project’s objective is to create a new village by linking all the sports halls along the Quai Gambetta and Quai de la Gironde (2 for volleyball, seating 5000 and 15000; 1 for handball seating 15000 and 1 for badminton seating 7000), the swimming pool (seating 15000) and the main stadium (seating 25000, to be used for the decider stages in basketball and gymnastics) across the Canal Saint-Denis. The Sports Boulevard intersection with a long, straight stretch of the Saint-Denis canal is envisaged as accommodating a major portion of the Olympic Games within a unified site extending to the Stade de France.The facility will not be just a building: with a series of column-supported halls in steel and prestressed concrete spanning 90 meters at intervals of 25 meters, it will be a locality transformed. The halls in their turn support metal, mechanical and special-purpose subsystem combining to create the appropriate scenarios for the events. All technical services as well as the entire facilities at the disposal of the athletes (the locker roomf, medical provision, etc.) are to be accomodated on the basement level, connecting to the gymnastics sports arenas via a network of corridors. The public squares planned between the event halls are to be equipped with giant television screens, thus enabling events to be followed live. This will be generate a sense of unity between the arenas and the area outside, leading to a unique atmosphere which is likely to comunicate the festive mood in unexpected ways to more distant parts of the city. In order to perserve the city perspective, most of the spectator area has been sunk to a lower elevation, which is possible due to the low water table. The plan also provides for the upper portion of the spectator area to be removed following the Olympic Games so that the facility can be utilized in other ways. The complete facilities are integrated into the university, easing the campus’s future absorption of them. This aside, they could also be used

for other cultural activities: schools, playhouses, residential use, commerce and services, research laboratories or, still better, for establishing a museum dedicated to france’s waterways. The Calberson waterhouse is to be reconstructed for the Olympic Games and will accommodate the media center; subsequently it could serve as a research center. The roof is to be converted into a partly coveed roof garden, serving as a relaxation area for the journalists and television crews. However, this roof garden is also to give access to the elevated technology walkway which will run above the sports site and right across the Sports Boulevard. The designof the main arena creates a large open square which linksup with the quais and riverboat pier, thus completing the facility. A midprice hotel is also included in the proposial; this is to be a new type of hotel technically sophisticated, extremely comfortable, and offering good value for money. The project design, it goes without saying, has taken into account all facets of the infrastructure proposed in the document GIP Paris OUI 2008. The only modification which are at present little used. However, we plan to preserve one track, as a simple relocation of the main sports hall would suffice to make it available as the site for Metro station. Areas in the vicinity not directly affected by the project would remain avaible for other future redevelopment plans in this region, end for residential development and services, which might in due course be linked up with the projects for the riverboat station and regeneration of the canals. Thus the project is aligned on two strategic axes. The East-West axis, bounded by the boulevard Peripherique and Boulevard MacDonald, constitutes the new Sports Boulevard. The other axis, which has a discernible North-South trend, runs from the Saint-Denis canal toward the Stade de France, at one point following the main sports hall’s esplanade, where the canal’s banks are to be transformed into quais.