Overview

An investigation of the widespread popularity of modernist architecture in midcentury Brazil During the mid-twentieth century, Brazil as a country seemed to be fascinated with modernism. Middle-class people would read about it in popular newspapers and journals, then go about designing their own homes in the modernist style, using distinctive layouts and façades. In other words, modernist architecture was the popular architecture of Brazil. Fernando Luiz Lara investigates how and why modern architecture became so popular in his native country, tracking the path of the dissemination as well as the economic, cultural, and political conditions that made it possible. He views it as a direct extension of the optimism and relative stability that spread throughout the country beginning in the 1950s. This original and significant contribution to the field counters the traditional historiography of modernist architecture, and has broad applicability in examining the importance of the style throughout Latin America.

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9780813081687

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Reviews

""Makes a contribution to the field. It will surely have an impact on architectural studies in Brazil, as well as on the way in which Brazilian modernism is viewed worldwide. It continues important debates about architectural identity and expands debate about tradition, self-construction and the popularization of modern architecture.""--The Americas ""Throw[s] light on the exceptional status of architectural modernism in Brazil.""--Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians ""Fills an important gap in our understanding of the production of architecture by the population at large and, in this case, of the specific history of that production in Brazil. . . . Details the role of modern and paradigmatic architecture in that popular production; showing how architecture is seen, understood, and reproduced by the population at large.""--H-Net

Author Information

Fernando Luiz Lara is assistant professor of architecture at the University of Texas at Austin.

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