17th PRIMAVERA LITERÁRIA. Casa França-Brasil, 2017

The Primavera Literária, or “Literary Spring”, is a literary event that takes place throughout different cities in Brazil, such as Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Salvador and Belo Horizonte. It is organized by the Brazilian Publishing League (Libre), which consists of over 100 associated independent publishing houses.

Primavera’s first edition in Rio dates to 2001. Since then, many of them took place at the Museu da República’s gardens, at the Catete neighborhood. For the 17th edition, which happened between the 26th and 29th October 2017, the event moved to a new location: Casa França-Brasil.

Casa França-Brasil is a heritage listed building. Designed by Grandjean de Montigny, a french architect that came to Brazil together with the French Mission, the building was opened in 1820. Originally conceived as a trade market, today the building is an important cultural and art center.

The Primavera includes several attractions. Besides the publishing exhibition space, the event had to include a lecture room, a book signing venue and a kids room.

The project’s two driving concepts were sustainability and transparency. Sustainability through the reuse of the sales booths from the previous years. Transparency was obtained by a slight alteration to the booths. The back was removed in order to improve circulation, to enhance the number of booths available in the space and also to allow the observation of the building’s architecture.

The project followed the building’s original layout, preserving the circulation axis. The sales booths were organized along the central axis, aligned with the columns. The wooden booths’ color integrated well with the columns’ color. There was a second circulation around the central space, where more booths were allocated. The kids space, lecture room and book signing were assigned to the side rooms. Furniture and cushions were placed at the transitions spaces to give the public room to rest and to read a good book.


Credits

Client
Liga Brasileira de Editoras
Bibliomundi

Event Production
O Cluster

Event Design
Vento Estúdio

Photographs
Tiago Tardin