In 2015, João Vilanova Artigas would become 100 years old. Throughout that year, several commemorative events were held to remember the architect’s life and work. Itaú Cultural in São Paulo organized an exhibition showing videos, photos, drawings and models of his work. In June, the documentary “Vilanova Artigas: the architect and the light”, directed by his granddaughter Laura Artigas and Paulo Gorski (trailer below) was released and featured the FLIPMais program, at the Paraty Literary Fair. That is why today the blog also pays tribute to one of the great Master of Modern Brazilian architecture.
Born in Curitiba, Paraná, João Vilanova Artigas graduated as an engineer-architect from the Polytechnic School of São Paulo, in 1937, and went on to become one of the main representatives of the São Paulo architecture school. Although he is best known for his brutalist projects, such as the FAU-USP building or the Morumbi stadium, his work is vast, revealing multiple influences and maturity throughout his career.
While the Rio de Janeiro school closely followed in the footsteps of Le Corbusier, as in Oscar Niemeyer’s work, Artigas was initially deeply influenced by the organic architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright.
F.L. Wright’s influence in Vilanova Artigas’ early work (1938-44)
Vilanova Artigas learned about Wright’s architecture in the 1940’s, through American magazines that arrived in Brazil. He admired the way Wright perceived architecture. Wright used to say that the earth and the construction process were intimately linked to architecture. The so-called “organic architecture” seeks an integration, a symbiosis of the built environment with nature. There is a clear refusal of monumentality in his projects and a desire to camouflage architecture with its surroundings. This explains Wright’s preference for raw materials, such as stone and wood, or materials resulting from primary transformations, such as brick and tile.
Frank Lloyd Wright also saw great importance in the quality of the interior space. In his work, the interior usually took precedence over the exterior. For him, the design of a building should be guided by the internal layout and the facades should reflect this composition.
The influence of Wright’s “organic architecture” can be found in some of Artigas’ project, such as Casa Paranhos or the “Casinha”, where the architect lived.
The Casa Paranhos design (1942-1944) followed this organic concept. The linear windows on the facade were close to and along the roofline. The corner windows contributed to a dissolution of form. The composition conveys sharpness and rigor, yet also lightness.
Casinha (1942), was the first building Artigas designed for himself, giving him a freedom he hadn’t had in other projects until then. There was little difference between the main acess facade or the other ones, thus breaking with the hierarchy between parts. The internal space had few partitions, offering fluidity between the rooms.
Vilanova Artigas’ political involvement
Artigas joined the Communist Party in 1945. Two years later, when the party’s registration was revoked, his political participation became even more assiduous, which fostered his social commitment and the increasingly exalted tone of his articles.
In 1952, he published the controversial “Caminhos da arquitetura” (translation: Paths of Architecture), in which he aggressively challenged the two greatest modernist architects of our time: Frank Lloyd Wright, who had greatly influenced his architecture up until then, and Le Corbusier. He considered them both ‘elitist architects’, stating they produced architecture only for the ruling classes. Artigas saw Corbusier’s philosophy as the result of naive thinking, based on the elusive search for a utopian world made up of pure forms without any real commitment to construction. Not to mention the fact that he used architecture to reinforce the domination of man by the capital. It is a document that exudes the tension experienced by the left at that political moment, characterized by the Cold War and the campaign against American imperialism.
Artigas was a restless man and believed that the only way architecture could bring about significant changes in society was through some kind of political stance. Otherwise, the conflict between classes would never be resolved. Politics should an intrinsic component of architecture and this association between the two was an attribute that every architect should recognize and aim for in their work. As a result, Artigas began to consider architecture’s social function in his projects, always emphasizing a critique of reality.
Le Corbusier’s influence in Vilanova Artigas’ later works – a change in his rhetoric (1945)
These political convictions led him to raise a series of questions about the message being conveyed through his architecture. By defending an organic architecture, wasn’t he denying progress, something so vital for Brazil’s economic growth? Was this submission to nature a sign of disbelief in the human capacity? Artigas went beyond a mere reflection on the meaning of his work – he actually reevaluated his references.
Despite its austerity, the geometry in Le Corbusier’s oeuvre, corresponded to a movement towards the democratization of the modern form. Similarly, Walter Gropius’ encouragement of large-scale production made it possible for the masses to access these products. Within this context, technology became increasingly present in Artigas’ work. His architecture drifted away from nature and moved towards the urban and the industrial process.
From 1945 onwards, Artigas dedicated himself to understanding and improving construction techniques using modern materials. His attraction to raw materials, his concern for internal space and its integration with the urban system and an approximation between rational organization with psychological studies became evident in his work. Their main characteristics included pure geometric volumes, V-shaped roofs and fluid internal spaces. Not to mention the interaction of the enclosed space with the external environment, achieved through large openings in the facades and the continuity with the sidewalks.
Project for his second house (1949)
The architect’s second house was built on the same plot as ‘Casinha’. There is a strong contrast between the styles of both houses. While the first refers to a more traditional building process, through the use of wood, bricks and ceramic tiles, the second makes use of large glass panels, concrete and geometric shapes. The opacity of the small house contrasts with the transparency of the second one. There is a lightness to this new house that adds elegance to the whole, as well as greater purity to the volume. The slanted roof contributes to the formal expression of the construction.
Visual continuity between the inside and outside is an important aspect of the project. There is also visual continuity between the floors.
FAU-USP(1961-1969)
FAU-USP is known as one of the most important projects of the architect’s career, considered the most successful experiment in combining spatial and social interaction. In this building, Artigas managed to bring together architecture, pedagogical thinking and social ideology, creating a composition in perfect harmony. The project’s central thesis revolves around the concept of space as a promoter of human relationships.
From the outside, the building is a pure form volume, closed on the upper floors but continuous on the ground level. Its large concrete facades reveal its construction process by the imprint of the planks used as formwork. The hermetic nature of the volume from the outside contrasts with the spaciousness of its interior. As one enters the building and goes up its ramps, one gets a glimpse of a fluid space that flows into different directions.
Although this is a sheltered environment, the interior resembles a public open space. It is part of the city and this notion is emphasized through its spatiality. There isn’t one main entrance. It is a space that opens out into several directions and everyone is welcome. The idea here is that coming and going of people becomes the main characteristic of the entire space.
The ground floor has the largest area. It is home to a kind of central internal square that receives light directly from the intervals in the roof’s structure. The city is brought inside the building. This is a space that stimulates encounters and meetings. The external pillars have a distinctive design where a flat, triangular shape intersects a three-dimensional pyramidal volume that rises from the ground, as if the foundations were ascending. This solution alludes to the forces of nature by provoking a direct and unexpected encounter between contrasting forces – gravity and a bottom-up reaction.
Its crude and heavy morphology makes FAU-USP a rooted building, close to the earth and the people, but at the same time transcendent, through the zenithal lighting and ample spaces, highlighting an utopian worldview in the face of the current situation.
Conclusion
Artigas’ trajectory leaps between styles. Despite this, certain principles such as honesty of material, fluidity of space and functionality are present throughout his entire work, which reveals the architect’s gradual maturity. These premises reveal his political ideology, something that directly influenced the choice of architects whose work inspired his production, moving from the organicism of F.L. Wright, to the rationalism of Le Corbusier, and eventually to the patriotism of national architecture, such as those by Oscar Niemeyer and Affonso Reidy.
