Architecture News

The Barcelona City Council, the Architects' Association of Catalonia (COAC), and the Mies van der Rohe Foundation, in collaboration with Barcelona Building Construmat and ArquinFAD, are organizing Architecture Week 2019, a public-facing initiative taking place at various venues across Barcelona from May 9 to 19.

During this time, Barcelona will become the epicenter of a wide range of activities related to architecture and the city, transcending disciplinary and territorial boundaries. Additionally, marking the centenary of the founding of the Bauhaus school of design and architecture, this year's edition will highlight the legacy of various early-20th-century architectural movements.

Estúdio Módulo de Arquitetura, a firm led by Marcus Vinicius Damon and Guilherme Bravin, has won the competition for the new headquarters of the Association of Engineers and Architects of Sorocaba (AEAS). Below, see the proposal along with the project description.

The subject of a fire that led to its collapse, the Wilson Paes de Almeida building, located in downtown São Paulo, is the focus of the documentary Pele de Vidro, directed by Denise Zmekhol, daughter of the architect responsible for the skyscraper's design, Roger Zmekhol.

The Federal District government announced mid-last month plans to build the Bible Museum based on Oscar Niemeyer's 1987 sketches. Local architecture and urbanism organizations have expressed concern over the plans, which could significantly affect the preservation of the federal capital's Monumental Axis.

Architectural representation, regardless of the platform—whether a plan, section, isometric, or perspective—is simultaneously a product and a procedure. As a product, it is the final outcome representing the object, articulating scale, information, and medium. As a procedure, it is the process of defining what and how to represent, dissecting and translating information—understood not only as a graphic product but as a process of analyzing, selecting, and translating from one medium to another, an objective way of thinking through which new truths about the augmented object are revealed. For this procedure and product to be complete, their information must be understood by the viewer. This gives rise to graphic standards and codes that regularize comprehension and typically relate to the constructive logic of the building or city, whether existing or proposed. Ultimately, this graphic product is an abstraction of reality—an idealized, orthogonal translation of the aspects chosen for systematization.

The Institute of Architects of Brazil - São Paulo Department has announced the winners of the IABsp 2019 Awards. Divided into 17 categories that cover social housing, commercial and cultural projects, urban design, and restoration—both built and unbuilt—as well as publications, photography, ephemeral architecture, and student projects, the IABsp 2019 Awards aim to identify the advancements and challenges in contemporary national architecture and urbanism. The initiative recognizes ingenious and significant proposals, particularly those that effectively contribute to the development of technique, knowledge, and the built environment in dialogue with nature, society, economy, and culture.

Videos

The exhibition “Vkhutemas: The Future in Construction 1918-1930,” curated by Neide Jallageas and Celso Lima, opens at Sesc Rio Preto, where it runs until July 21, 2019. The anti-exhibition reconstructs around 300 projects by 75 artists and aims to explore the pedagogy of the Soviet school of art, design, and architecture as a possibility for the future. An acronym for the State Higher Artistic and Technical Workshops, Vkhutemas opened in 1928, shortly after the Soviet revolution, and was closed in 1930 by Stalin.

The new São Paulo Cycling Plan, recently presented by Mayor Bruno Covas, outlines the implementation of 173.3 kilometers of new bike lanes and paths in the capital. The proposal, which is part of adjustments to the municipal administration's Target Plan, also includes the upgrading of 310.6 kilometers of existing lanes. 

The Children's Village project by Marcelo Rosenbaum and Aleph Zero was named one of the 25 best architectural works built in the 21st century. Located in Formoso do Araguaia, in the state of Tocantins, the project ranked 24th on the list published by the British newspaper The Guardian.

Videos

"Tijolo por Tijolo" is a web series about Sesc Pompeia, Lina Bo Bardi's masterpiece. Through very short videos, viewers can explore the history of the Pompeia neighborhood and learn more about the factory that operated on the site before Sesc opened. Additionally, the series covers the repurposing and revitalization of the area and interesting details about the project designed by the Italian-Brazilian architect. In total, there are 11 episodes with exclusive content about the "Citadel of Liberty," containing historical facts, quotes from the architect, and rare photos. Watch all the videos from the series below:

The famous tube stations of Curitiba, icons of the Paranaense capital's urban development in the 1990s, will be replaced by a newer model. The goal of the City Hall and the Institute for Research and Urban Planning of Curitiba (IPPUC) is to replace twelve of these structures along the Inter 2 bus line.

Conceived and directed by British artist Isaac Julien, the video installation A Marvellous Entanglement portrays the life of Lina Bo Bardi and stars actresses Fernanda Torres and Fernanda Montenegro, who play the architect at two different stages of her life. The nine-screen installation opens today at the renowned Victoria Miro art gallery in London.

The safety app Malalai, created by architect and urban planner Priscila Gama to make cities and various modes of transportation safer for women, was the main honoree of the GOL Novos Tempos award. The award celebrates initiatives aimed at democratizing mobility.

Yesterday, São Paulo City Hall approved the heritage listing of seven modernist works, six of which were designed by Paulo Mendes da Rocha and one by Gregori Warchavchik. In addition to these, 32 other properties were listed in the city.

The Iphan Dictionary of Cultural Heritage is a collaborative work developed by the General Coordination of Documentation and Research of the Department of Articulation and Promotion of Iphan, as well as a research project of Iphan's Professional Master's Program in Cultural Heritage Preservation (PEP/MP). Its goal is to provide the cultural heritage preservation field with a dynamic and critical reference work that, drawing from institutional experience, highlights the fundamental practices, discourses, and concepts that characterize the history of this field in Brazil.

The curatorial proposal of the 12th São Paulo International Architecture Biennial, under the title Everyday (Todo Dia), aims to highlight the central role of the everyday – the most trivial dimension of reality – in 21st-century architecture and urbanism. “The discreet power of the everyday lies in its ability to translate the way we inhabit, use natural resources, and maintain space into common practices that make design relevant and a shared concern,” state the curators of this edition, Ciro Miguel, Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, and Vanessa Grossman.

Architecture and Urbanism students and faculty from across the country will have a unique opportunity to present their work to professionals from around the world during the 27th World Congress of Architects, UIA2020RIO, which takes place in Rio de Janeiro from July 19 to 23 next year. This opportunity is part of the National Exhibition and Award “All the worlds. Just one world. Architecture 21”, whose open call is now available.

The Rio de Janeiro Department of the Institute of Architects of Brazil (IAB-RJ) announced on December 14 the winners of the 56th Annual Awards and the 35th Architect of Tomorrow Award. The announcement took place at the Casa do Arquiteto Oscar Niemeyer, IAB-RJ's headquarters in Flamengo, accompanied by an exhibition of all competing entries. The jury unanimously decided to award the 2018 IAB/RJ Grand Prize to the Aruá Building, by FGMF Arquitetos.

Aiming to value the practice and intellectual production of architects and urban planners, as well as academic work produced in architecture courses, the 35th Architect of Tomorrow Award was open to recent graduates and students enrolled from the 5th semester onward. Interested students could submit proposals produced as mandatory coursework during the second academic semester of 2017 and the first academic semester of 2018, either individually or in teams, with up to one submission per category across the nine categories established by IAB-RJ. In the 2018 edition, nine categories were available: building architecture; cultural facility architecture; cultural heritage, restoration, and adaptive reuse; technology and innovation in architecture; theoretical production; urbanism and landscaping; social housing; and metropolitan impact. 

Below is the list of winners and honorable mentions for both awards.