Ricardo Rocha writes about the German-Brazilian architect Hartmut Thimel. Forgotten by canonical historiography, he worked with Georges Candilis, Yona Friedman, and later with Oscar Niemeyer. His work is a bridge between 1970s Brazil, addressing the international avant-garde - Team X, Metabolism, Spatial Urbanism, and Prospective, among others.
Hartmut Friedrich Rodolf Thimel studied construction, architecture, and urban planning at the Polytechnische Schule in Graz, Austria, and at the Staatliche Baugewerkschule Barmen-Elberfeld in Wuppertal, Germany. Subsequently, he began his career working in the office of the German architects Helmut Heinrich and Hubert Petschnigg in Düsseldorf, and later with A. K. Kitsikis in Athens, Greece. In France, he collaborated with Georges Candilis, Alexis Josic, and Shadrach Woods, including on the famous Toulouse le Mirail housing project, which renewed the precepts of modernist urbanism. While still in France, he established a lasting relationship with Yona Friedman in Paris, who remembered him fondly.
