At the Gwangju 2018 Biennale, Brazilian artist Lais Myrrha built a piece called Case Study in which a full-size column of the Alvorada Palace (Oscar Memeyer, 1957-58) is supported by a full-size column of the Colubande plantation (Eio de Janeiro, 17th century). Such is the conundrum of Brazilian architecture: a very successful Modernism deeply rooted in coloniality. The architecture of Brazil is more than simply an application of Corbusian principles for a warmer climate. In this narrow and Eurocentric definition of Brazilian 20th-century architecture, existing scholarship celebrates Brazil's achievements when it coincides with and reinforces northern expectations, diminishing them every time they diverge. Many contemporary authors have explored the pervasive nature of such ethnocentrism in architectural criticism and the ways in which the discourse is always dictated by northern terms, denying agency and initiative to anyone outside its intellectual borders. It is time to decolonise the analysis and the narrative of Brazilian architecture.
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