The Journal of Architecture

ISSN: 1360-2365 (Print) 1466-4410 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjar20

João Vilanova Artigas and the meanings of

concrete in Brazil

Felipe Contier & Renato Anelli

To cite this article: Felipe Contier & Renato Anelli (2015) João Vilanova Artigas and
the meanings of concrete in Brazil, The Journal of Architecture, 20:3, 445-473, DOI:
10.1080/13602365.2015.1048698

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 445

The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 20
Number 3

João Vilanova Artigas and the

meanings of concrete in Brazil

Felipe Contier, Renato Anelli Institute of Architecture and Urbanism, University of

São Paulo, Brazil (authors’ e-mail addresses:
felipe.contier@usp.br; renato.anelli@gmail.com)

Brazil has a recognised tradition in modern architecture, led by Oscar Niemeyer, whose work
has been distinguished since 1943 by his free forms enabled by reinforced concrete. Before
that, however, the country already harboured important lesser-known experiments with
concrete, which were responsible for a wide process of modernisation of producer relation-
ships in construction. The architect João Vilanova Artigas participated in these two eras,
bringing relevant theoretical and project-based positions relating to how the use of
reinforced concrete could be understood in Brazil. In 1956, various critiques converged,
making Artigas the leader of a radical school based on exposed reinforced concrete. The
three elements that structure this paper contemplate changes in construction in Brazil, iden-
tifying inflexions in Artigas’s production: his early ’constructional morality’; his proximity to
Niemeyer; and the displacement of monumental figurativeness to construction itself.

Introduction By the 1970s, Yves Bruand had already inter-

The history of reinforced concrete is inseparable
from the process of the modernisation of construc-
tion, including technical specification, aesthetic
renovation, training, legislative changes, innovation,
technology transfer and changes in the consumer
market and supply industry. In Brazil, this process
includes specific economic and cultural dynamics in
which the formation of a renowned modern archi-
tectural and engineering culture, responsible for
important technological achievements regarding
reinforced concrete structures, stands out.1 In this
overall picture, it is important to recover the radical
meaning concrete had in debates on modernisation
in Brazil in the twentieth century. Some context
should first be given to the historiography of
modern architecture in Brazil. The first works of
modern architecture were regarded as part of the
nation’s success.2
preted the relationship between form, construction
techniques and policy as an evolutionary process
that would culminate in a modern architecture
engaged in the construction of the state.3 From
the 1980s, new studies sought to identify the com-
plexity of this historical process, inspired by the
French Annales tradition in historical scholarship,
the Venice School of architectural history and by
contemporaneous Anglo-Saxon stances.4 The
identification of technical, political and social mod-
ernisation in Latin American countries in a period
prior to the emergence of modern architecture
prompted a questioning of periodisation and histori-
cal determinism.5 The instrumental role of the
modern vanguards in the construction of nation
states also emerged as an explanatory factor of the
dynamics of South American policy, with New Mon-
umentality being identified as a common strategy.6

# 2015 RIBA Enterprises 1360-2365 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13602365.2015.1048698

 446
João Vilanova Artigas and
the meanings of concrete
in Brazil
Felipe Contier, Renato Anelli
European and North American scholarship,
however, presents a different trajectory of under-
standing. In the new editions of Pioneers of
Modern Design in the 1950s, Pevsner included Bra-
zilian production (disparagingly) as a reference
point for the revised discussions of modern architec-
ture in Europe. Max Bill, Ernesto Rogers, Bruno Zevi
and others that followed, made little effort to under-
stand the specific processes of Brazil, interested only
in its production as an expression of European archi-
tectural culture. The same judgements, arguments
and facts continued to be repeated by important
authors.7 Even more recent works, such as those
by Jean-Louis Cohen8 and Adrian Forty,9 which
sought some rapport with the critical production of
Brazilian and Latin American historians, present a
very limited information base, perhaps due to
language difficulties. In his comprehensive study of
reinforced concrete, Forty does not discuss local
technological research developed in the early twen-
tieth century, which allowed concrete construction
to flourish quickly, even before the emergence of
modern architecture. Cohen fails to see that the col-
laboration of Costa with Le Corbusier from the time
of the Ministry of Education and Health in 1936 was
decisive for the formulation of the principles of New
Monumentality, on which modern Brazilian pro-
duction of the following decades is based. In light
of this, the work presented here aims to contribute
to the diffusion of a new historiography of modern
Brazilian architecture, strongly grounded in recent
Brazilian academic research.
Despite being less known than Oscar Niemeyer
(1907–2012), the architect João Vilanova Artigas
(1915–1985) stands out as a significant leader in
the context of the renewal of the language of and
thinking around architecture in concrete in the
1950s.10 This paper will highlight the intellectual
conflict Artigas felt between the aesthetic tradition
of a popular national modernism and the ethical
modernity of a constructive realism. This conflict
can be identified both in his design choices and in
his debates with others—especially his dialogue
with Niemeyer. The three different epochs that
structure this paper mirror the changes in construc-
tion in Brazil and point out inflexions in Artigas’s
work: the ’constructional morality’ learned from his
early practice, set against the industrialisation of
concrete construction in Brazil; the defence of Nie-
meyer’s popular modernism in the context of the
idea of a ‘Brazilian modern architecture’; and,
finally, the displacement of monumental figurative-
ness to construction itself.
The formation of the industrial complex of
concrete construction
As in Europe, the early use of reinforced concrete in
Brazil preceded the first expressions of modern archi-
tecture in which, of course, the material was pre-
eminent throughout the twentieth century, as a
result of its constructional and aesthetic pro-
grammes. Nevertheless, the use of reinforced con-
crete implied from the start a broad process of
modernisation in constructional production.
Introduced by immigrants and foreign entrepre-
neurs, mainly German and French, reinforced con-
crete was soon disseminated in Brazil through
many kinds and scales of work: from modest resi-
dential buildings to large infrastructural construc-
tions such as bridges and dams, as well as tall
 447

The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 20
Number 3

Figure 1. The first

house designed by
Artigas for himself,
exterior, São Paulo,
1942 (photograph:
FAUUSP Archives).

buildings. This success is explicable in terms of the
following favourable factors: a) a good supply of
unskilled labourers; b) the availability of sufficient
labourers among the European immigrants who,
being originally linked to carpentry trades, were
skilled enough to make formwork and props; c) pro-
duction in quantity of cement; d) investors who were
interested in emerging markets; e) local skilled
engineers, such as the graduates from the Polytech-
nique Schools of Rio de Janeiro (1792), São Paulo
(1893), Bahia (1897) and Pernambuco (1912),
amongst whom many scientists, structural engineers
and pioneer businessmen in reinforced concrete
stood out. The beginning of technological research
aimed at developing a national process of reinforced
concrete production coincided almost exactly with
the import of Hennebique’s patented technologies
in the 1890s: when the magazine Le Béton Armé
publicised Hennebique’s system (1899), the Poly-
technique School of São Paulo founded its Office
 448
João Vilanova Artigas and
the meanings of concrete
in Brazil
Felipe Contier, Renato Anelli
Figure 2. The first
house designed by
Artigas for himself,
interior, ground floor,
São Paulo, 1942
(photograph: FAUUSP
Archives).
of Materials-Resistance and started testing it.11 The
decision to overcome the technological gap with
Europe was evident at various times: in 1905, Hippo-
lito Gustavo Pojul Jr published his Manual of
Materials Resistance, disseminating research
reports conducted in the Office, and in 1913
reinforced concrete was already part of Paula
Souza’s class textbooks, enabling its diffusion as a
construction technique.
In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, new
immigrant workers, having brought the necessary
knowledge from their respective countries, intro-
duced brick masonry construction techniques. At
the same time, institutions for the Arts and Crafts
were created in Rio de Janeiro (1856), Salvador
(1872), São Paulo (1873) and Recife (1980),
marking the strategy of the new local elite to train
skilled labourers at all levels in order to meet the
needs of art and industry.12 These initiatives contrib-
uted to the appearance of workshops for steel
forging, carpentry, stained glass, mosaics, carvings
and stucco, as well as the creation of a body of
trade labourers whose qualifications and technical
skills gave them relative freedom and better salaries
than those paid to factory workers.13 Many of these
immigrants were Italian, Spanish and Portuguese:
they brought knowledge of their trades as well as,
often, radical political ideals.14 The architectonic
language of official buildings, as well as those pre-
ferred by the wealthy classes, depended on these
workers who would were thus able to enjoy relative
independence. In certain kinds of buildings these
workers were also in charge of the design and man-
agement of the construction.
The First Republic (1889–1930), of a liberal and
oligarchic character, gave an international and
metropolitan character to the major Brazilian cities.
Large foreign companies and consortia entered the
Brazilian market, affecting the local construction
industry and city management. Their role was to
modernise cities and construction, importing their
expertise in exchange for broadly favourable
business conditions. This period of great freedom
for foreign capital gave rise to many companies,
such as: the Light Co. (1899);15 the City Co.
(1912); the Reinforced Concrete Construction Co.
(1913);16 the Danish construction company, Chris-
tiani & Nielsen (1922); the German Wayss &
Freytag, established as the National Construction
Co. (1924).17 An exception was the Construction
Co. of Santos, founded by the engineer Roberto
Simonsen (1912).18

The Republic thus required a series of new build-
ings and public investments—such as roads,
bridges, parks, theatres, monuments, administrative
centres, railway stations, ports—and the headquar-
ters of public or private companies, many of which
were foreign. The ferment in the capital, Rio de
Janeiro, and the rapid growth of cities such as São
Paulo, which would become the largest city in the
country by the late 1950s, heated up the housing
market, both rental and residential. The conjunction
of reinforced concrete and some masonry tech-
niques became very popular in the 1920s.
Within this broad spectrum of work, the academic
architecture that was taught at the National School
449
The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 20
Number 3
Figure 3. The first
house designed by
Artigas for himself,
section details, São
Paulo, 1942 (FAUUSP
Archives).
of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro and in the course in
architecture and engineering at the Polytechnique
of São Paulo was predominant. Several foreign
architects also worked in Brazil, many of them
brought over by companies already active in the
country. The fine arts shone in ostentatious public
buildings, whereas in more quotidian edifices the
main function carried out by architects was akin to
that of engineers, taking the form of small construc-
tion firms competing with all sorts of tradesmen,
contractors and licensed practitioners.
However, important technological innovations
were happening behind the traditional appearance
of the decorative arts that were noticeable on the
 450
João Vilanova Artigas and
the meanings of concrete
in Brazil
Felipe Contier, Renato Anelli
Figure 4. The first
house designed by
Artigas for himself, plan
details, São Paulo, 1942
(FAUUSP Archives).
façades of these buildings. These included:
reinforced concrete structures: large spans; verticali-
sation; reinforced concrete foundations; exper-
iments with metallic formwork; new ways of
managing the construction site by increasingly
detailed drawings.
In this incipient industrial construction complex,
the use of reinforced concrete brought about a
new technical and social division of labour. Increas-
ingly detailed drawings were introduced as a
mediation between the workers and the work they
needed to carry out. By codifying the elements of
construction into service orders addressed to
unskilled workers, this mediation created conditions
of work on the construction site analogous to indus-
trial work (real subsumption, according to Marx). In
fact:
It was possible, with concrete construction, to
detach the skilled, mental work of building from
the purely manual element. The opportunities
provided by concrete for such a division of
labour is what really distinguished concrete and
made it uniquely different from all other construc-
tion processes in labour terms. No other means of
construction allowed such a satisfactory separ-
ation of the mental from the manual elements
of labour.19
As traditional trades such as artistic ironwork and
carpentry gave way to new, lower-skilled trades,
such as that of the formwork carpenter, an army
of servants was being formed to carry out menial
tasks such as the transport of materials, and the
preparation of reinforcements and mixing concrete.
Many migrants from the poor north east were drawn

to the south east by the opportunities offered by its
industries in the 1930s.
These changes were also intertwined with the
erection of the first reinforced concrete skyscrapers
in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro,20 as happened in
other parts of Latin America.21 Liernur22 attributes
this growth to the trend to substitute property
investment for financial, the latter of which had
been adversely affected by the 1929 crisis. After
the peak of the crisis, the large amount of available
capital directed to the property market helped to
stimulate the rational organisation of design and
451
The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 20
Number 3
Figure 5. House Rio
Branco Paranhos,
exterior, São Paulo,
1943 (photograph:
FAUUSP Archives).
construction sites, resulting in a higher return on
investments. The newspaper A Noite’s new building,
whose structure was due to the engineer Emilio
Baumgart, was inaugurated in 1930 and, in its inno-
vation in using geometrical shapes and its height of
102 metres, consolidated Brazilian mastery of
reinforced concrete structures.
The formal renewal of architecture was initiated
the activity of foreign architects, or those with
foreign training. It is remarkable that two of them,
the Ukrainian Gregory Warchavchik and the Brazi-
lian Rino Levi (who both graduated from Rome in
 452

João Vilanova Artigas and

the meanings of concrete
in Brazil
Felipe Contier, Renato Anelli

Figure 6. House Rio

Branco Paranhos, plan,
São Paulo, 1943
(FAUUSP Archives).

1921 and 1926 respectively), started their careers in
Santos Builder Co. Warchavchik and Levi developed
the first modern architecture in Brazil, the former
with his own Modernist House in Santa Cruz St in
1927 and the latter with some simple houses
designed and built between 1929 and 1932.23
Despite the small size of these residential pro-
grammes, they experimented with abstract geo-
metric-shaped spans and cantilevers of reinforced
concrete. Warchavchik’s manifesto24 condemned
‘absurd ornaments’, and praised ’logical construc-
tion’ and a new taste for machines designed by
engineers for economy and functionality.
The 1930 revolution, a coup d’état against the
coffee oligarchy, established a period of modernis-
ation for the Republic. Getúlio Vargas guided the
modernisation of public institutions, helping to estab-
lish scientific and technical standards25 and guiding
industrialisation.26 In this process, new labour legis-
lation and the regulation of unions and professions
granted architects and engineers exclusivity for the
design and coordination of civil constructions.

Constructional morality
Artigas’s professional trajectory began in this
context, away from large reinforced concrete con-
structions. Being a good designer, the young
architect from the Polytechnique School was
invited by Warchavchik in 1939 to be his partner
in a tender for the Municipal Court of São
Paulo. Until then, he had worked in a placement
at the Botti & Bratke construction firm. Since
1937 he had also owned a modest ‘purely com-
mercial’ construction firm, in which he satisfied
local bourgeois taste through eclectic and histori-
cist variations.
At that time, Artigas did not know who Le Corbu-
sier was, nor what was happening in Rio de
Janeiro.27 Nevertheless, he imitated the Santa Cruz
453
The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 20
Number 3
Figure 7. Londrina Bus
Terminal, exterior, front,
Londrina, 1950
(photograph: FAUUSP
Archives).
St house twice.28 Thereafter, he criticised the con-
cealment of materials evident in the house, which
he thought contradicted Warchavchik’s principles,
as stated in 1925: that is, bricks concealed by
rustic plaster composed of white cement, kaolin
and mica in order to confer a concrete-like appear-
ance; a roof-hiding parapet, suggesting an indus-
trial-looking slab and frames that were in fact
hand-crafted.29 Despite Warchavchik’s justification,
presented at CIAM in 1930, according to which
‘local industry does not produce the necessary, stan-
dardised, tasteful and good quality construction
yet’,30 to Artigas the house revealed the opposite
of what was intended: the mimetic character of
an imported style, in conflict with local potential
(figs 1, 2, 3, 4).
 454

João Vilanova Artigas and

the meanings of concrete
in Brazil
Felipe Contier, Renato Anelli

Figure 8. Londrina Bus

Terminal, under
construction, Londrina,
1950 (photograph:
FAUUSP Archives).

Even though Artigas did not express these criti-
cisms in the 1940s, his design practice evinces an
intuitive search for what he deemed to be more suit-
able solutions than that of reinforced concrete. Arti-
gas’s criticism was directed at the cost of concrete,
which became a luxury item during the Second
World War, only available to ‘a dozen landowners
who came from Europe and wanted to exhibit
what they already had’: after all, a concrete slab
was ‘fifty times more expensive than mahogany
beams’.31 In search of ’constructional morality’,32
Artigas rejected Corbusian language and found in
Frank Lloyd Wright the modern solutions he con-
sidered to be cheaper and more appropriate to
local reality: large roofs, timber and exposed bricks.
It was with this poetics of the ‘truth of materials’33
that Artigas began to stand out in the architectural
scene of the 1940s. His Polytechnique education
enabled him to calculate his buildings’ structures
and study innovations in construction. This is how,
for example, inspired by photographs of Wright’s
work and a theorem published in a technical maga-
zine,34 he designed in 1943 the famous cantilever of
the Rio Branco Paranhos house (figs 5, 6).
Despite the relative seclusion of his initial pro-
fessional practice, Artigas felt supported by the

guidelines of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB),
which harboured important Brazilian artists and
intellectuals. To Artigas, architecture could not be
approached other than as a political act.35
Thereby, while the PCB considered that the Brazi-
lian proletariat was not yet formed as a class—
thus desiring a democratic bourgeois national revo-
lution—Artigas dedicated himself to reinventing
the house designs of São Paulo’s bourgeoisie.
PCB’s thesis, known as ‘stagism’, was convenient
for architects insofar as they depended on
wealthy clients to work, especially in São Paulo
where there were not as many public buildings
as in Rio de Janeiro. With this background he
brought a new attitude, re-educating the residents
of his projects by establishing ‘a severe morality’,
as defined by Lina Bo Bardi in 1950:
455
The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 20
Number 3
A home built by Artigas does not follow the laws Figure 9. Londrina Bus
dictated by man’s routine life, but imposes a vital Terminal, part of
passenger boarding
law, a morality that is always severe, almost
area, Londrina, 1950
puritan. It is not ‘showy’, nor does it impose an (photograph: FAUUSP
appearance of modernity, which today one Archives).
could define as stylism. [ … ]. Every Artigas
houses breaks all the rules of the bourgeois
halls. All is open inside the Artigas homes one
gets to see, with plenty of glass and often low ceil-
ings; the kitchen is not separate and the bourgeois
who might be attracted by the novelty and requi-
sition an Artigas home would be shocked with ‘so
little privacy’, blinded by so much light.36
‘Brazilian Modern Architecture’
From 1943, Artigas, who until then had developed a
body of work in relative isolation, renewed his archi-
tectonic vocabulary, getting closer to the modernism
of Niemeyer, who was by then already associated
with the first modern public works of the Vargas
Government. The convergence with the groups
from Rio de Janeiro can be related, amongst other
factors, to the New Monumentality37 and to the
impact of Brazil Builds,38 when Artigas would have
‘realised that while he endeavoured to build an
architecture of local features in isolation, another
architecture acknowledged as Brazilian had surfaced
through North Americans’ eyes’.39
This inflexion in Artigas’s work arose in a turbulent
political, professional and personal context. In 1943,
Eduardo Kneese de Mello asked Artigas to lead
jointly the creation of the Brazilian Institute of Archi-
tects’ (IAB) chapter in São Paulo, in a gesture
intended to integrate São Paulo into IAB’s national
project, until then dominated by the modernists
 456

João Vilanova Artigas and

the meanings of concrete
in Brazil
Felipe Contier, Renato Anelli

Figure 10. Londrina Bus

Terminal, section,
construction details,
Londrina, 1950
(FAUUSP Archives).

and located in Rio de Janeiro. At the same time, he
concluded his partnership with Duílio Marone in
the construction firm in order to establish a new
office in 1945, exclusively dedicated to design. Not
by chance, the first Brazilian Congress of Architects,
held in São Paulo and led by Artigas, promoted in its
agenda a distinction between the activities of archi-
tects and those of engineers, and asserted the artis-
tic autonomy of architecture. The ‘social function of
architecture’ discussed at the time revealed the will
of the new professional class to take a stance on
major national and international subjects. At last,
the dismemberment of the Polytechnique School
of São Paulo, in which Artigas taught, and the sub-
sequent creation of the Faculty of Architecture and
Urbanism (FAU) in 1948, allowed him to take a
leading position in architectural education, thus
widening his influence over other architects.
For a short period after Vargas’s dictatorship, the
PCB ceased being an illegal party and soon
 457

The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 20
Number 3

Figure 11. Olga Baeta

House, exterior,
entrance, São Paulo,
1956 (photograph:
FAUUSP Archives).

became a party of the masses (and very popular
amongst intellectuals, artists and architects). This
demanded public involvement by the party’s intellec-
tual leadership, Artigas included, and in turn, this
public role implied a collective position. In the Cold
War context, opposition to imperialism became
inevitable as did criticising both North American
and Soviet models. Seeking to reconcile all these
agendas, Artigas elaborated a curious theoretical
articulation between Socialist Realism, national
development and ‘Brazilian modern architecture’,
seen strategically as a unitary block. I will return to
this topic.
By abandoning construction activities, Artigas’s
office was reduced. Yet, he received his first large
commissions in this period, notably: São Lucas Hos-
pital (1945), Louveira Building (1946), Sociedade
Autolon and Cine Ouro Verde Building (1946), Chil-
dren’s House (1950), the Londrina Bus Terminal
(1950; figs 7, 8, 9, 10)) and the Morumbi Stadium
(1952). At the same time, he designed some
houses, mostly for friends from the University or
 458
João Vilanova Artigas and
the meanings of concrete
in Brazil
Felipe Contier, Renato Anelli
Figure 12. Olga Baeta
House, interior, ground
floor, São Paulo, 1956
(photograph: FAUUSP
Archives).
the Party. These are high-quality projects that show
his restlessness in redefining the uses and spatial dis-
tribution of his buildings, especially houses.
However, the displacement of his previous critical
stance towards modernism is nonetheless remark-
able. He started to adopt solutions that already
had been mastered by architects from Rio, such as
the composition of pure geometrical volumes, some-
times supported directly on the ground, sometimes
on pilotis; large openings; ramps as linkages
between superimposed plans; the independent
structure of reinforced concrete. Artigas did not
arrive at Niemeyer’s free form, but he did adopt
some of Niemeyer’s parti-pris, such as the butterfly
roof of the Kubitschek residence (1943), explored
by Artigas in his own house in 1949.
In the constructions built during these years, the
reinforced concrete form can be analytically
deduced but, as with Niemeyer’s work, it is
covered by different kinds of material. Yet,
reinforced concrete is present, allowing larger light
openings, multiple levels, free plans and, especially,
formal innovations.
This inflexion in Artigas’s work reveals an
acknowledgement of the communicative function
of architecture towards the masses: precisely at a
moment when even the non-specialist press
showed some interest in architecture. That does
not mean he was not technically committed to the
simplicity of the programme and construction:
after all, he even calculated most of the structures
of his smaller constructions himself. However, it
was, for him, rather a political issue—building a
popular image of a democratic and modern national
project, one that would be able to create the subjec-
tive conditions for the emergence of a progressive
revolution.
Therefore, ‘Brazilian modern architecture’ appears
in his work as an image representing this national
project. And, as communication with the populace
became a more pressing matter than his earlier
moral criticism of falseness in construction, the
achievements of reinforced concrete and those of
Brazilian engineering represented progress, and
the possibility of its expression in architectonic
form.40
In the early 1950s, with the emergence of the
Cold War, Artigas was deeply dedicated to the
 459

The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 20
Number 3

Figure 13. Olga Baeta

House, sections, site
plan, São Paulo, 1956
(FAUUSP Archives).

daily activities of the Communist Party, which, as a
reaction to its success in the 1945 elections,
became illegal once again. Being a member of the
editorial board of the Party’s magazine, Fundamen-
tos, Artigas published his most controversial texts
in defence of Socialist Realism and figurative art.
Abstract art and the influence of Le Corbusier
were deemed to be ‘imperialist’—and artisanal ten-
dencies, ‘reactionary’.41 Nevertheless all these pas-
sionate controversies did not deter him from his
belief in ‘Brazilian modern architecture’, according
to which he continued to design.
Constructive realism
Juscelino Kubitschek’s Government was the most
successful in containing the opposition and achiev-
ing its developmentalist agenda. Kubitschek’s
‘Goal Plan’ involved investments in strategic
sectors, such as energy, transport, basic industry
and education—enabled by a set of economic
 460

João Vilanova Artigas and

the meanings of concrete
in Brazil
Felipe Contier, Renato Anelli

Figure 14. Mario

Taques Bittencourt
House, exterior, under
construction, São Paulo,
1959 (photograph:
FAUUSP Archives).

Figure 15. Santa Paula

Yacht Club Boathouse,
exterior, São Paulo,
1961 (photograph:
FAUUSP Archives).
 461

The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 20
Number 3

Figure 16. Santa Paula

Yacht Club Boathouse,
interior, detail of pillar
contact point, São
Paulo, 1961
(photograph: FAUUSP
Archives).

measures that increased public spending rather than
the contraction recommended by international
creditors. The construction of the new capital
crowned the Plan and materialised his policies,
further stimulating civil construction. Lúcio Costa
won the tender, and the President himself chose
Niemeyer to take charge of the plans for the main
buildings.42
Brasília shaped the country’s accelerated modern-
isation process, generating contradictions between
the modern forms of architecture in concrete and
the extremely precarious conditions of the construc-
tion site.43 Despite the industrialisation plan that the
project allegedly represented, modernisation was
suggested by architectural forms that did not
express a reorganisation of the means of production,
which is to say, the means of construction. On the
contrary, the construction of an entire city in so
little time resulted in irrational solutions44 and par-
ticularly precarious conditions of life and work for
the candangos.45 From this perspective, Brasília
presents an unequal and incomplete portrait of
 462

João Vilanova Artigas and

the meanings of concrete
in Brazil
Felipe Contier, Renato Anelli

Figure 17. Santa Paula

Yacht Club Boathouse,
under construction, São
Paulo, 1961
(photograph: FAUUSP
Archives).

Figure 18. Beach house

of Giocondo Artigas,
exterior, front, Caiobá,
Paraná, 1961
(Photograph: FAUUSP
Archives).

these ideas.46 Despite his enthusiasm for the new

development, in which formal and technical pro-
gress predominated over the social.
Brazilian modern architecture, as led by Niemeyer,
was recognised as a prospect for the future of the
rest of the world devastated by war, and became a
pivotal basis for the international debate of that
period. This architecture was quickly popularised in
the country, being adopted by most architects in
the 1950s. Distortions, repetitions and exagger-
ations ensued as a result, but a high-quality standard
of construction also became normal.
Sigfried Giedion noted a ‘certain irrationality’ in
the speed with which all programmes following
the policy for national development embraced
architecture in Brazil, he did not fail to point out
that the ‘land speculation’ in which this architecture
was involved, was like ‘a cancer in Brazil’s develop-
ment’.47 Therefore, Giedion followed others’ criti-
cisms of the absence of urban planning and the
predominance of property speculation.48
In all these attacks on ‘Brazilian modern architec-
ture’, the best known is that of the Swiss architect
Max Bill on his trip to Brazil to attend to the
second Bienal of São Paulo in 1953. In an interview
with the magazine Manchete, the head of the
school of Ulm criticised Brazilian architecture’s form-
alism as being frivolous, irresponsible and anti-
modern. This statement provoked antipathy in
most Brazilian architects towards Bill, accompanied
by expressions of support and unity regarding
national architecture.
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Figure 19. Faculty of

Architecture and
Urbanism, exterior,
entrance façade, São
Paulo, 1961
(photograph: FAUUSP
Archives).

However, to understand the subsequent positions
of Niemeyer and Artigas, we must also consider the
change in PCB’s artistic doctrine. Nikita Krushchev,
in an article published in the magazine Fundamentos
in 1955, harshly criticised the USSR’s architecture,
stating that Socialist Realism should be more com-
mitted to economic dynamics and the people’s
material needs than to architectural form.49
To the new leader of the Soviet Union’s Commu-
nist Party, the neo-classicism that was being prac-
tised implied slow, expensive construction, with no
gains in comfort, space or construction quality. To
Kruschev, a poetics should be extracted from the
elements of the very building, from its proportions,
entrances and so on. From this realism, architecture
should seek a productive change: industrialisation by
means of standard plans and pre-fabricated
construction made from cheap and speedy
reinforced concrete.
In this context Oscar Niemeyer surprised everyone
with unexpected self-criticism in his ‘Testimony’.50
He claimed to have started, in 1956, on the occasion
 464

João Vilanova Artigas and

the meanings of concrete
in Brazil
Felipe Contier, Renato Anelli

Figure 20. Faculty of

Architecture and
Urbanism, exterior view
with parking areas, São
Paulo, 1961
(photograph: FAUUSP
Archives).

of the design for Brasília, a new stage in his career,
abandoning the rush, improvisation and excessive
originality which were responsible for the distortions
of previous years. He then stated that he was com-
mitted to ‘the simplicity of construction and [to]
the logical and economic sense that many
requested’. His new attitude even involved the way
he would hire workers, acting as the coordinator
of a public office, especially assembled for the build-
ings of Brasília, and no longer within his private
office. Niemeyer also sought the purification of
plastic form in the balance between functional and
constructional problems, and—what interests us
here—that his buildings ‘should no longer express
themselves by their secondary elements, but by
their very structure, properly integrated in the orig-
inal plastic design’.
All the factors mentioned above contributed to a
change of course in Artigas’s work. Until then,
even when shaken by direct contact with the
USSR’s neo-classicist architecture as practised in
1953,51 he continued to insist on the argument

that Socialist Realism should recognise in Niemeyer
‘the right position, the materialist standpoint’,
because he ‘understood the popular aspirations’ of
Brazilians.52
However, the sequence of work in Artigas’s career
reveals a more independent path, marked by a sense
of continuity and unity. Deliberately rejecting the
comfort and softness of a previous phase, his
formal rigidness was balanced with spatial fluidity.
The dominance of exposed concrete in every
element of his buildings reaffirms ethical and aes-
thetic criteria: low cost, legibility of space, construc-
465
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Volume 20
Number 3
tive clarity, elimination of the superfluous, etc. In the Figure 21. Faculty of
projects developed after Baeta’s house (1956; Architecture and
Urbanism, interior view,
figs 11, 12, 13) and Bittencourt II’s house (1959;
roof design, São Paulo,
Fig. 14), Artigas developed his new scheme: split- 1961 (photograph:
level disposed plans connected by ramps and FAUUSP Archives).
covered by a single roof. A basic external volume
defines the occupation of the site, harbouring the
complex internal spaces generated. Despite the
rigidity of the buildings’ shapes, enclosed by blind
façades, ground floors remained open. This
concept was evolved through the houses, schools
and other buildings which Artigas designed during
this period, including the Santa Paula Yacht Club
Boathouse and the beach house of Giocondo
Artigas (figs 15, 16, 17, 18). It reached its most
accomplished expression in the design for the
Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism (FAU) of São
Paulo University (1961/69). Under the FAU’s giant
concrete grid roof, a set of ramps and corridors
leads visitors around a large central void, visible
from each level. With neither doors nor interrup-
tions, one passes from the city to the studios on
the upper level (figs 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25).
Agreeing with Niemeyer’s self-criticism according
to which the ‘original plastic conception’ of buildings
should be expressed through their structure—their
essence—Artigas sought a poetics of the behaviour
of structures. His inventive columns were also not
limited to strict economic performance (which
would represent architecture’s regression to engin-
eering) or to the elegance of their design. Instead,
he sought to emphasise the correct structural effort,
even if, in order to do that, it was necessary plastically
to stress the support points through devices such as
oversizing, diagonal lines of compressive stresses,
 466

João Vilanova Artigas and

the meanings of concrete
in Brazil
Felipe Contier, Renato Anelli

Figure 22. Faculty of

Architecture and
Urbanism, under
construction, interior
court, São Paulo, 1961
(photograph: FAUUSP
Archives).

continuity of the system pillar-façade-roof and articu-
lated joints. Artigas related his new poetics to August
Perret, who said it was necessary to ‘faire chanter les
points d’appui’.53
Despite the fact that Niemeyer and Artigas took
different paths after 1956, they were both con-
nected through the PCB’s theses, whereby the alli-
ance with the bourgeoisie should no longer be
focused on the subjective conditions for social trans-
formation (education and co-option of bourgeoisie’s
progressive faction), but on the objective: the devel-
opment of productive forces. According to this
orthodox Marxism, industrialisation would sub-
sequently and ultimately lead to the crisis of capital-
ism and to the end of labour exploitation. However,
the industrialisation of architecture was far from
being achieved due to the wide availability of
cheap labour, partly prompted by the availability of
reinforced concrete. Niemeyer thought this objective
should be pursued through political activism, with
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Number 3

Figure 23. Faculty of

Architecture and
Urbanism, under
construction, roof
exterior, under
construction, interior
court, São Paulo, 1961
(photograph: FAUUSP
Archives).

nothing that could be done immediately in architec-
ture, although in practice his formal freedom had
induced innovations in engineering. In Niemeyer’s
mind, architecture was just a distraction, something
less important, which at best could instigate the curi-
osity and imagination of other realities. To Artigas,
however, who saw moral content in the choices of
materials and techniques (for example, imperialism,
elitism, colonialism), this separation between mili-
tancy and professionalism became unsustainable:
After all the question arises: where do we
stand? Or: what to do? Wait for a new society
and keep doing what we do, or abandon the
occupation of architecture, since it is oriented
in hostility towards the people, and throw
ourselves into the revolutionary struggle comple-
tely?54
The solution for his dilemma—’a critical attitude
towards reality’—was fuzzy when he wrote it in
1952, but would became clearer after 1956.
 468

João Vilanova Artigas and

the meanings of concrete
in Brazil
Felipe Contier, Renato Anelli

Figure 24. Faculty of

Architecture and
Urbanism, completed
building, public event,
São Paulo, 1961
(photograph: FAUUSP
Archives).

Hence his attempt to reconcile the impossibility of
industrialisation and the limited role of the architect
led to a social and economic critique in the language
of architecture:
Oscar and I have the same worries and find the
same problems [ … ], but whereas he always
strives to solve the contradictions in a harmonious
synthesis, I plainly expose them. In my opinion, the
architect’s role does not consist in an adaptation;
we should not conceal the existing struggles with
an elegant mask, we need fearlessly to reveal
them.55
Nevertheless, when we analyse Artigas’s work more
closely, we can notice that his new poetics did not
break with Niemeyer’s monumentality and its tricks.
Artigas’s masterpiece, the FAU, reproduces the
lessons taught by Niemeyer’s Alvorada Palace
(1957): its front pillar, equally iconic as Niemeyer’s,
also supports a small amount of the load of the
façade above it (which seems heavier than it is).
Moreover, he displaced the alignment of the side-
elevation pillars with the remaining ones in order to
emphasise the resulting large span. These and
other ‘details’ demonstrate that he was also not

willing to give up the architectural features that made
the buildings of this tradition so amazing. In fact
Artigas mixes the truth of materials and structural be-
haviour with the figurative tradition of Latin Ameri-
can monumentality. Thus the visual effect of the
structure is more radical than its effective rationalis-
ation. The exposed marks of the concrete formwork
give clues to its production, but its appearance (the
appearance of truth) becomes stronger than the
content it indicates (the production itself). Thus the
exposure of the concrete assumes a radical
meaning as the production remains unchanged.
469
The Journal
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Number 3
Figure 25. Faculty of
Architecture and
Urbanism, present-day
exterior view, São
Paulo, 1961
(photograph: Nelson
Kon).
Denunciation? Unfortunately, it is not this simple
since there is an undeniable positivity in it. The first
point is to recognise that the marks of concrete pro-
duction, carefully indicated by Artigas in his draw-
ings, have an evident plastic intentionality.
Artigas was always aware of two inescapable con-
ditions of art and architecture: their presence in
history and the economy. This is what drove his ‘con-
structive morality’ in the early 1940s and his post-
war turning point towards what he deemed most
likely to be identified by the people as progress.
Thus he rescued a commitment to the reality of pro-
 470
João Vilanova Artigas and
the meanings of concrete
in Brazil
Felipe Contier, Renato Anelli
duction whilst seeking to represent the contradic-
tions of reality. That is why there is no figuration of
a non-existent industrialisation in his works, unlike
many Brutalist aesthetics of the period. However,
within a critical approach to reality, he finds space
to value the scientific and technical ingenuity of
reinforced concrete. Similarly to the classical
language of architecture, Artigas focused his symbo-
lism on pillars, les point d’appui. The meanings of
these symbols, however, cannot be comprehended
in terms of their forms in isolation, but only in
close relationship to the reality of the project: its
budget, its location, its use, etc. Two other projects
designed by Artigas at the same time as FAU, help
to illustrate this balance between material and the
visual representation of reality. In the beach house
for his brother Giocondo on the coast at Paraná,
far from the industrial context of São Paulo where
expertise in advanced reinforced concrete was to
be found, Artigas experimented by using a rustic
log of wood as a pillar (see Figure 18 above), com-
bining it with other vernacular materials, in, for
example, brick walls and stone floors. Nevertheless,
in parallel, for the Boathouse of the Santa Paula
Yacht Club, he reaffirmed his use of exposed con-
crete and developed one of his unfulfilled ideas
from FAU for the use of the pillar, producing a
simply supported structure expressed in four small
rolling contact points (see Figure 16 above).
His approach can be better understood through
an anecdote from the time of the space race, accord-
ing to which Americans might invest much time and
money in research leading to a pen that would be
able to write in extreme conditions of temperature,
pressure and lack of gravity—whereas Russians
would simply take a pencil. This illustrates the low-
tech pragmatism of a certain Marxist culture of the
1950s and 1960s, to which Artigas belonged. In
the discussion of modern architecture and underde-
velopment, he gave meaning to a diffuse collective
feeling by assigning dignity to the simplicity and
low technology of reinforced concrete. It was ident-
ified as the most suitable option for Third-World
conditions, which included intensive use of labour,
the loss of traditional construction techniques and
engineering expertise: among other factors pre-
sented hitherto. If concrete was already closely
linked to modernisation of the relationships of pro-
duction in construction and to the history of Brazilian
modern architecture, it was the right time to expose
it as a symbol of that awareness. That is why we can
think of it in terms of figurativeness, a typical
element of the New Monumentality.
However, Artigas’s praise for the relative low-tech
qualities of concrete cannot be treated as an aes-
thetic of precariousness, which he vehemently
refuted, but rather as a means of demonstrating
the cunning of human ingenuity (artistically organ-
ised) in the face of the violent nature and limited
conditions of development that characterised Brazil
in that period. Thus, greater spans and larger canti-
levers acquired a sense of boldness and political
resistance, which became more radical through an
aesthetic purification enabled by the use of less
industrial technology and less material variety. A
single material—indeed, Le Corbusier’s rationalist
dream of a construction site with only one métier
—converged with the meaning of concrete in Arti-
gas’s architecture, where the solution was a conse-
quence of a ‘critical attitude towards reality’.

Acknowledgements
This work was supported by Fapesp under Grant
2013-03331-8; English translation by Eduardo
Orsolini.
Notes and references
1. C. A. Vasconcelos, O concreto armado no Brasil:
recordes, realizações, história (São Paulo, Copiare,
1985).
2. L. Costa, ‘Razões da nova arquitetura’, (1936), in,
A. Xavier, Depoimento de uma geração (São Paulo,
Casac Naify, 2003); P. Goodwin, Brazil Builds
(New York, Moma, 1943); H. E. Mindlin, Modern Archi-
tecture in Brazil (New York, Reinhold Publishing Corp.,
1956).
3. Y. Bruand, Arquitetura contemporânea no Brasil (São
Paulo, Perspectiva, 1999; 1st edition, 1981).
4. Authors such as Sophia da Silva Telles, Otília Arantes,
Eduardo Comas, Carlos Alberto Martins and Sylvia Ficher.
5. A. Gorelik. ‘O moderno em debate: cidade, moderni-
dade e modernização’, in, MIRANDA, Wander Melo
(org.), Narrativas da modernidade (Belo Horizonte,
Autêntica, 1999), pp. 55–80; J. F. Liernur, Escritos de
arquitectura del siglo XX en América Latina (Madrid,
Tanais, 2002), pp. 27–53.
6. M. A. Pereira, A. Gorelik, Das vanguardas a Brasília—
Cultura urbana e arquitetura na América Latina (Belo
Horizonte, Editora UFMG, 2005), p. 157.
7. Eg, A. Colquhom, Modern Architecture (Oxford,
Oxford University Press, 2002); M. Tafuri, F Dal Co,
Architettura Contemporanea (Milan, Electa, 1976).
8. J-L. Cohen, The Future of Architecture Since 1889
(London, Phaidon, 2012).
9. A. Forty, Concrete and culture: a material history
(London, Reaktion Books, 2012).
10. His leadership is acknowledged in the recognition of the
‘Artigas School’: cf., J. Katinsky, ‘Arquitetura Paulista:
471
The Journal
of Architecture
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Number 3
uma perigosa montagem ideológica’, Arquitetura e
Urbanismo, 17 (1988)—or, more commonly, as the
‘School of São Paulo’, even though it does not define a
regionalist approach. This school is also usually identified
with ‘New Brutalism’: cf., R. Zein, ‘Brutalismo, sobre sua
definição’, Arquitextos, 84 (2007) <http://www.
vitruvius.com.br/revistas/read/arquitextos/07.084/243>.
11. M. Vargas, História da Técnica e da Tecnologia no
Brasil (São Paulo, Editora UNESP, 1994).
12. In spite of being created with academic aims, these
institutions became providers of specialised services
to modern architecture. It is remarkable, for example,
that the Lyceum of São Paulo produced the industrial-
ised-looking frames used in MASP or in palaces in Bra-
sília. To Lina Bo Bardi, who came from Italy, it was
difficult to believe that ‘old craftsmen’ made this
work. Prejudices aside, the Lyceum of Arts and Crafts
of São Paulo was financed by industry, and the
accumulation of technical knowledge allowed it not
only to produce industrialised-looking objects but
also to supply the construction industry with products,
training and technological innovation. See,
R. Schenkman, Do vital ao pano de vidro (MSc
Thesis, São Paulo, FAUUSP, 2014).
13. M. L. Gitahy, ‘Desmemória das metrópoles: apagando
os rastros do trabalho de construir’, Ponto (1998).
14. In São Paulo, ‘at the turn of the century, three quarters
of the masons and all the foremen came from Italy’ A.
V. Queiroz apud Pedro Arantes, Arquitetura Nova:
Sérgio Ferro, Flávio Império e Rodrigo Lefèvre, de
Artigas aos mutirões (São Paulo, Editora 34, 2002),
p. 20. Until the First World War they were the ‘main
leaders of the workers movement’: M. L. Gitahy, ‘Des-
memória das metrópoles’, op. cit.
15. Hoping to avoid the high cost of imported cement for
large hydroelectric power plant construction , in 1924
Light Co. created Brazil’s first cement factory, Portland
Perus Brazilian Cement S.A., in São Paulo.
 472
João Vilanova Artigas and
the meanings of concrete
in Brazil
Felipe Contier, Renato Anelli
16. Owned by L. Riedlinger, a German businessman who
was Hennebique’s student.
17. M. L. Freitas, Modernidade concreta: as grandes con-
strutoras e o concreto armado no Brasil, 1920 a 1940
(DSc Thesis, São Paulo, FAUUSP, 2011).
18. The new processes and techniques introduced by this
company were directed to the rational organisation
of the construction site. Later, this experience guided
the owner’s political campaign which gave rise in
1932 to the first Brazilian agencies for the rationalis-
ation of work: see, A. P. Koury, ‘Remontando o para-
doxo histórico e montando a unidade nacional: os
quartéis construídos pela Companhia Construtora de
Santos’, II ENANPARQ (Natal, 2012).
19. A. Forty, Concrete and culture, op. cit., p. 232.
20. C. Rabelo, Arquitetos na cidade: espaços profissio-
nais em expansão (DSc Thesis, São Paulo, FAUUSP,
2011).
21. Amongst which the gigantic Kavanagh Building in
Buenos Aires, built between 1933 and 1936, stands
out with its 90.000 m² of reinforced concrete.
22. J. F. Liernur, Arquitectura en la Argentina del siglo XX:
La construcion de la modernidad (Buenos Aires, Fondo
Nacional de las Artes, 2001), p. 202.
23. R. Anelli, A. Guerra, N. Kon, Rino Levi, arquitetura e
cidade (São Paulo, Romano Guerra, 2001), pp. 28–29.
24. G. Warchavchik, ‘Acerca da arquitetura moderna’
(1925), Arte em Revista, 4 (1980), pp. 5–6.
25. Some examples are the creation of the Brazilian Associ-
ation of Technical Standards (ABNT), the Brazilian
Association of Portland Cement (ABCP), the Institute
for Technological Researches (IPT) and the Universities
of São Paulo (USP) and Porto Alegre (UFRGS).
26. Vargas created a state-based industry: for example, the
National Manufacturer of Motors (FNM) and the
National Steel Co. (CSN).
27. P. Arantes, Arquitetura Nova, op. cit.
28. Ottini de Arruda Castanho’s and Giulio Pasquali’s
houses, according to D. Thomaz, Um olhar sobre Vila-
nova Artigas e sua contribuição à arquitetura brasileira
(MSc Thesis, São Paulo, FAUUSP, 1997).
29. Y. Bruand, Arquitetura Contemporânea no Brasil (São
Paulo, Perspectiva, 1981).
30. G. Warchavchik apud H. Segawa, Arquiteturas no
Brasil 1900–1990 (São Paulo, Edusp, 1998).
31. Testimony of Artigas to Sylvia Ficher (1982) apud
P. Arantes, Arquitetura Nova, op. cit.
32. ’Constructional morality’ or ’technological morality’ are
terms used by Artigas that became key concepts for his
work: see, Ver: S. Ficher, M. Acayaba, Arquitetura
moderna brasileira (São Paulo, Projeto, 1982).
33. The notion of ’truth of materials’ appears in Artigas’s
text ‘Os caminhos da arquitetura moderna’ (1952), as
a contribution from F. Lloyd Wright, to whom ’the
materials should have their color, their own texture,
because it must be “organic”’.
34. Published in the Magazine of the Engineering Institute
according to Artigas’s testimony in ‘A função social do
arquiteto’ (1984), in, J. Artigas, Caminhos da arquite-
tura (São Paulo, Cosac Naify, 2004).
35. The issue that seems fundamental to us is how Artigas’s
political approach in architecture swings between the
visual and the technical. A different position from
ours, one that avoids the relationship between ideology
and architecture in Artigas’s work, can be seen in
R. Zein, ‘Brutalismo, sobre sua definição’, op. cit.
36. L. B. Bardi, ‘Casas de Vilanova Artigas’, Habitat, 1 (1950).
37. S. Giedion, J. L. Sert, F. Legér, ‘Nine Points on Monu-
mentality’ (1943), Harvard Architectural Review
(1984), pp. 62–63.
38. P. Goodwin, Brazil Builds, op. cit.
39. D. Thomaz, Um olhar sobre Vilanova Artigas e sua con-
tribuição à arquitetura brasileira (MSc Thesis, São
Paulo, FAUUSP, 1997), p. 125.

40. The unskilled labour implications of reinforced con-
crete were only acknowledged by Artigas’s disciples
in the 1970s. We refer here to Sérgio Ferro, Rodrigo
Lefèvre and Flávio Império. See A. P. Koury, Grupo
Arquitetura Nova (MSc Thesis, São Carlos, EESC,
1999); P. Arantes, Arquitetura Nova, op. cit.;
F. Contier, ‘História da arquitetura a contrapelo’, in,
S. Ferro, A história da arquitetura vista do canteiro
(São Paulo, GFAU, 2009).
41. Cf., ‘Le Corbusier o imperialismo’ (1951); ‘A Bienal é
contra os artistas brasileiros’ (1951); ‘Os caminhos da
arquitetura moderna’ (1952): essays brought
together in J. Artigas, Caminhos da arquitetura, op.
cit.
42. When Mayor of Belo Horizonte, Kubitschek had
employed Oscar Niemeyer (1940–45): the successful
experience of Pampulha harmonised with the Presi-
dent’s aesthetic-political goals.
43. This contradiction was thoroughly analysed by Sérgio
Ferro: see ‘O canteiro e o desenho’ (1976), in,
S. Ferro, Arquitetura e trabalho livre (São Paulo,
Cosac Naify, 2006).
44. For example, the import and transport of the metallic
structures of the ministries was done by aeroplane,
since it was then the only means of access.
45. The name for the workers who built Brasilia: recruited
throughout Brazil in a climate of propaganda for ‘pro-
gress’.
46. S. Giedion, ‘Introduction’, in, H. E. Mindlin, Modern
Architecture in Brazil, op. cit.
47. A. Colquhoun (Modern Architecture, op. cit.) proposes
that the theories underlying ‘New Monumentality’
sought to attract wide opposition to the strictly utilitar-
ian character of such buildings. However, this opposi-
tion did not derive simply from the processes of
urban and territorial planning. Far from being con-
ceived as restricted to the field of aesthetics, its mani-
festo aimed to embrace the ’planner, architect,
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Volume 20
Number 3
painter, sculptor, landscapist’, envisaging action
ranging from ’isolated unities to the wide urban
areas’—advocating the position that ’there are no
boundaries between architecture and urban planning,
just like there is no border between the city and its
region’. ‘New Monumentality’ would give concrete
visibility and social meaning to planning activities
(S. Giedion, J. L. Sert, F. Legér, ‘Nine Points on Monu-
mentality’, op. cit.).
48. G.C. Argan, ‘Arquitetura moderna no Brasil’ (1954), in,
A. Xavier, Depoimentos de uma geração (São Paulo,
Cosac Naify, 2003), pp. 170–175.
49. It was a similar argument that, moreover, led to the rise
of Socialist Realism in spite of Constructivism in the
1930s. In order to centralise policy for the arts, the
Soviet Union’s Communist Party regulated the literary
and artists` unions in 1932, thus terminating the dis-
putes between the constructivists, productivists and
other groups. Cf. J-L. Cohen, The Future of Architec-
ture since 1889, op. cit., p. 172.
50. O. Niemeyer, ‘Depoimento’ (1958): A. Xavier, Depoi-
mento de uma geração, op. cit., pp. 238–240.
51. Artigas went to the USSR twice, in 1952, accompanied
by IAB’s architects, and in 1953, with a delegation of
PCB’s artists and intellectuals. After the second trip,
he fell into a crisis and almost abandoned his office,
designing only two houses between 1954 and 1955.
52. J. Artigas, ‘Considerações sobre arquitetura brasileira’
(1954), in, J. Artigas, Caminhos da arquitetura, op.
cit. In this text, Artigas signals his opposition to his col-
leagues in Rio Grande do Sul, Edgar Graeff and Demé-
trio Ribeiro, who defended a regionalist-oriented
Socialist Realism.
53. ’make the point supports sing’
54. J. Artigas, ‘Os caminhos da arquitetura moderna’
(1952), op. cit.
55. J. Artigas apud Y. Bruand, Arquitetura contemporânea
no Brasil, op. cit., p. 302.