Romullo Baratto is an architect with a PhD from FAUUSP and Managing Editor of ArchDaily. He previously coordinated the editorial team of the 11th São Paulo Architecture Biennial and served as Managing Editor of ArchDaily Brasil, where he led the platform to win the FNA Award—the first time the honor was granted to a media outlet. He collaborated on the editing of the book "Concrete Jungle", published by gestalten, and has curated architecture exhibitions in Brazil, Chile, Denmark, and Italy, as well as delivered lectures and moderated debates in Spain, the United States, and Portugal. His doctoral thesis investigates the urban landscapes of São Paulo through cinema. His work spans academic research and editorial practice, communicating architecture through texts, interviews, lectures, curatorship, and photography. Follow him on Instagram @romullobf.
The new award, a partnership between the Tomie Ohtake Institute and Leroy Merlin, has extended its submission deadline. Until August 10, university students of any discipline can submit design projects related to products, furniture, fashion, interiors, landscaping, web, graphics, services, and other fields, under the theme SHARE.
Afastado de Quem Falais a diptych short film about Adega Baía da Arruda, a project by the Portuguese-Swiss studio Barão-Hutter, built on Pico Island in 2017.
Last Thursday, during the opening of the exhibition featuring the 13 finalist projects – selected from 244 submissions representing 17 Brazilian states and the Federal District – the winners of the 5th Instituto Tomie Ohtake AkzoNobel Architecture Prize were announced.
With the votes counted, the first round of the presidential election was not enough to determine the country's next political leader; candidates Fernando Haddad, of the Workers' Party, and Jair Bolsonaro, of the Social Liberal Party, will face off once again in the runoff vote on October 28.
Political differences and ideological discrepancies aside, the next president will have, among many other tasks, the responsibility of providing federal support for the development of Brazilian cities—home to about 87% of the country's population. To contribute to the debate and—if it is ArchDaily's place to do so—help undecided voters make up their minds, we have compiled below the proposals of both presidential candidates for the future of cities, based on their respective government platforms, covering topics such as housing, urban development, infrastructure, sustainability, mobility, and the right to the city.
How many discoveries can a walk through São Paulo reveal? What if this expedition felt like a treasure hunt and was led by a friendly, highly curious dog? Inspired by the success of the Prédios de São Paulo trilogy, a project conceived by Matteo Gavazzi, comes Prédios de São Paulo para Crianças. Set to launch in July 2018, the children's book features text by journalist Tatiana Engelbrecht and illustrations by Daniel Almeida. The book is published by GAPS Editora.
Documenting the urban landscape is a task photographers have undertaken almost since the birth of photography in the second half of the nineteenth century. Inexhaustible, the city continues to serve as raw material for photography, which, in turn, offers an image of the city that is simultaneously identical to and distinct from what is felt when experiencing the urban space.
Mauro Restiffe is perhaps one of the photographers who most deeply experiences the city and its residual spaces—an aspect that becomes immediately apparent upon viewing the selection of photographs chosen for the exhibition São Paulo, Out of Reach, on display at the Instituto Moreira Salles in São Paulo, curated by Thyago Nogueira. Bringing together photos that record moments of urban transformation and decay in places such as Cracolândia, Bom Retiro, Luz, Itaquera, and Ipiranga, among other neighborhoods, Restiffe composes a fragmented image of São Paulo between 2012 and 2014. Yet—partly due to his technique and, above all, his gaze—it also represents other eras of this metropolis.
The debate over the roles of architects and engineers and the perceived overlap of their professional scopes has driven a series of recent protests in Portugal, sparked by parliament's approval of a bill that allows engineers to sign off on architectural projects.
Under these circumstances, the frustration of architects and their resentment toward their engineering colleagues is understandable. However, in an article published by the newspaper Público.pt, Gonçalo Cano Moniz offers an alternative perspective. In hopes of reversing this unfortunate decision, he seeks to reunite engineering and architecture as the complementary fields they are, using historical arguments to shift the focus to the true consequence of the legislation: the weakening of both professions—architecture for having been undermined, and engineering for being assigned "responsibilities for which it is clearly unprepared."
School buildings house complex systems. From kindergarten to university faculty, the journey through the levels of learning consists of an accumulation of vital experiences resulting from the interaction between these systems.
The educational function, as functionalism termed it, now builds its environments under new paradigms that reflect and respond to an increasingly diverse and complex social agenda.
Model of the bicycle that will be distributed throughout the streets of São Paulo. Image: Yellow / Courtesy ofício
São Paulo will soon have a new bike-sharing system. Developed by the company Yellow, the system will deploy 20,000 vehicles and will not feature stations—the bicycles will be left freely on the streets.
Known as "dockless," the service already operates in other parts of the world, such as China and Germany, and involves leaving bikes "free" on the streets, available to users via an app that unlocks the selected vehicle. At the end of the trip, riders can leave the bicycle wherever is convenient, and it locks itself, remaining available for the next user.
The project, titled Empatias Mapeadas, consists of an interactive parametric sculpture featuring pulsing lights and speakers that mix and broadcast the heartbeats of the participants who touch the piece.
Heritage-listed at both the state and federal levels, Teatro Oficina, designed by Lina Bo Bardi and Edson Elito, is at risk of having its surroundings profoundly altered by the construction of two 100-meter-tall residential towers. The project, led by the Silvio Santos Group, was approved by the National Historical and Artistic Heritage Institute (Iphan) during a meeting on May 29.
The crowdfunding campaign to produce the 2019 Athos Bulcão Illustrated Calendar is now live. Through November 28, the public can contribute to the production and distribution of 6,000 copies of the calendar. In return, supporters will receive copies of the publication alongside rewards featuring the artist's work, such as bookmarks, postcards, books, tote bags, magnet sets, mouse pads, silver jewelry, and even framed tiles, as well as having their names printed in the acknowledgements section. Supporters can view the rewards and make their contributions on Catarse.
The concept of Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art) shaped 19th-century art movements and influenced several design schools of the era—including the Bauhaus, which brought the term into the modern age. The school's unstructured architectural designs and avant-garde furniture paved the way for fields such as fashion, graphic design, and painting. At the Bauhaus, disciplines drew inspiration from one another, blurring the boundaries between art and industry. When the school closed in 1933, however, many design projects were left unfinished.
To revive some of these interrupted Bauhaus design projects, Adobe has launched the "Hidden Treasures" initiative to recreate five typefaces originally designed by five of the school's masters: Joost Schmidt, Xanti Schawinsky, Reinhold Rossig, Carl Marx, and Alfred Arndt.
The Museu de Arte de São Paulo has put up for sale a limited edition of one hundred crystal easels designed by Lina Bo Bardi. Originally introduced in 1968 and removed from the museum in 1996, the iconic easels were redesigned by the firm Metro Arquitetos and brought back to the MASP gallery in 2015. Each unit costs R$ 10,000, and the proceeds will support the museum's activities.
Dresden-based architecture collective ruestungsschmie.de has shared another large-scale video mapping project, this time on the facade of the Church of St. Ludmila in Prague. Titled NUCLEUS³, the project uses audiovisual media to raise the question: what do we expect for the future?
Videos
Captura de tela do filme "The Hyms of Muscovy", de Dimitri Venkov. Image Cortesia de Arquiteturas Film Festival
The Arquiteturas Film Festival, one of the most prominent film festivals dedicated to cinema addressing architecture and cities, has announced the list of award-winning films for its 2018 edition. In its 6th edition, the festival, which is an independent project promoted by DYMA – Do You Mean Architecture, focused on "exploring what we learn from the futuristic, utopian, or hyper-realistic stories that have been shaping our visual culture through cinema."
Believing that “there is no cinema without architecture,” the objective of Arquiteturas is to discover and present films that foster meaningful contemporary debates and broaden the viewer's critical thinking.
Lina Bo Bardi. Preliminary study – interactive sculptures for the Trianon Art Museum belvedere, 1968. India ink and watercolor on paper, 56.3 x 76.5 cm. MASP Collection, donation from the Instituto Lina Bo e P. M. Bardi
The theme “Women’s Histories, Feminist Histories” will guide the 2019 exhibition program at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP). Six solo exhibitions by female artists—Djanira da Motta e Silva, Tarsila do Amaral, Lina Bo Bardi, Anna Bella Geiger, Leonor Antunes, and Gego—have already been confirmed, alongside a major group exhibition sharing the program's title.
The documentary FILME PAISAGEM, um olhar sobre Roberto Burle Marx (Landscape Film: A Look at Roberto Burle Marx) opens in theaters on November 15, showcasing the Brazilian landscape architect's profound contribution to the country's native flora. Written and directed by João Vargas Penna, the film is a journey through the art and personality of Roberto Burle Marx, who was also a painter, cook, and singer—lesser-known facets of his life to the general public.