Paulo Mendes da Rocha

摘要

Soon after graduating from the Mackenzie Architecture School in Sao Paulo in 1954, Paulo Mendes da Rocha (Vitoria, Brazil, 1928) started to ground his work by defining his own distinctive architectural discourse. He was able to clearly affirm his vision of space and architecture in the Paulistano Athletic Club Gymnasium in Sao Paulo (1958) which he completed when he was 30 years old and where the combination of balanced forces and a striking structural conception led to the creation of a powerful platform suspended above a set of six elegant vertical and thin concrete elements, which are also connected to the steel top structure through an refined system of cables. The space in the project is predominantly defined by horizontal lines, which amplify the perception of a continuous ground floor, where barriers between inside-outside spaces are blurred. His training as an architect was informed by the synergic action of two strong beliefs: on the one hand, appreciation and respect for construction techniques, an approach inspired by his father, who was an engineer; and on the other hand, the importance of architecture's social dimension, an idea that he probably consolidated during his collaboration with Joao Batista Vilanova Artigas, who mentored him in the early days of his career. The programmatic structural clarity and the almost diagrammatic simplicity of his first project have remained constant in his extensive body of work, alongside the political quality of his interventions. At the Museu Brasileiro da Escultura in Sao Paulo (1998), a thick, uninterrupted 60-metre horizontal line shelters an intriguing portico of sculpturally defined public space. In his projects, massive forms of raw concrete always find a counterpart in light and sophisticated construction details: even the most complex engineering solution is balanced and conceived in order to convey the feeling of essentiality and simplicity of form. Awarded with the Pritzker Prize in 2006, Paulo Mendes da Rocha is one of the architects whose work has opened new trajectories in the contemporary landscape of Brazilian architecture.