Few public figures were more deeply Brazilian than the Italian architect Lina Bo Bardi. Arriving in Brazil shortly after World War II, she grew so attached to Brazilian culture that she became one of its main interpreters, capable of an understanding of local traditions that was both rigorous and comprehensive.
Architecture critic and essayist Francesco Perrotta-Bosch examines the trajectory of this brilliant artist in light of the following question: how was a foreigner able to see so much of a country that was not her own, to the point of translating it for Brazilians themselves?
Just three projects would have been enough to secure her place in the pantheon of Brazilian architecture: MASP and Sesc Pompeia, both in São Paulo, and the Solar do Unhão in Salvador. However, her career went far beyond these iconic buildings. She was involved in theater and film, and taught at the university level. She brought with her the sophisticated education of Milan's intellectual circles, but saw no hierarchy between a canvas by Giorgio de Chirico and a handmade wooden toy from the remote corners of Bahia.
For Lina Bo Bardi, everything could be designed—from architecture to magazine pages, from cultural institutions to menus, from events to memories. She wanted to decide everything, even her country.
Lina abhorred officialdom and the social rituals of bourgeois life. She was a communist and played an important role in fighting the military dictatorship, yet she was also the owner of a majestic modernist house in Morumbi and the wife of Pietro Maria Bardi, the all-powerful figure chosen by Assis Chateaubriand to establish and manage the São Paulo Museum of Art.
Based on extensive research and a meticulous survey of unpublished sources, drawing on dozens of interviews and both Brazilian and Italian bibliography, and, above all, narrated with lightness and an ingenious temporal structure, this book pushes the boundaries of the biographical genre. Like Lina's work, it is dense, joyful, and captivating.
Lina: A Biography
- Release date: May 7, 2021
- Pages: 576
- Format: 15.7 × 23.0 × 3.55 cm
- Price: R$ 89.90
- ISBN: 978-65-5692-128-0
- E-book price: R$ 34.90
- E-ISBN 978-65-5692-130-3
- Buy here
This article was written by Romullo Baratto. The translation is powered by AI.
