Three magazines with a feminine stamp in the diffusion of modern Brazilian architecture [1]
by Giovanna Augusto Merli e Patricia Méndez
Abstract
This paper addresses four examples that, classified according to their moment and the nature of their professional efforts, demonstrate the efficient work developed by female architects in the diffusion and consolidation of modern architecture in Brazil. The methodology applied consisted in reviewing, evaluating, periodizing, and selecting three periodicals that highlighted Brazilian modern architecture between 1930 and 1955, and in which these professionals worked in the "shadows. Chronologically, one can observe Carmen Portinho dedicated to promoting the spread of modern principles throughout the country via the PDF magazine, Maria Laura Osser, and Giuseppina Pirro as international spokespersons of Brazilian projects in the French magazine L'architecture d'aujourd'hui, and finally, Lina Bo Bardi with the Habitat positioned herself as a faithful defender of the particularities of modern national architecture. This work transcends traditional androcentric observation perspectives, opening other doors that complement Latin American historiographical studies, understood from the commitment assumed by women, professionals of architecture and urbanism, who positioned themselves as enthusiasts of the ideals of modern Brazilian architecture from the specialized press.
Keywords: modern architecture, Brazil, periodicals, women, 1930-1960, Carmen Portinho, Maria Laura Osser, Giuseppina Pirro, Lina Bo Bardi
In recent years, the scientific and academic literature has opened to studies that address and resort to woman's participation in different fields and, among them, the discussions concerning architecture are not out of this perspective. However, among the multiple attempts that insist on demonstrating the professional anomie of women in the field of architecture, there prevails the omission of a channel that, far from making them invisible, allows the observation of productive and relevant work: the architectural magazines. These are the premises that sustain this text, based on the analysis of some periodicals, which not only show the initial protagonism of female architects but also, over time, were occupied by more and more of these professionals. The material analyzed was limited to three architectural magazines, published between 1930 and 1955, which distinguished themselves as the authorized voices to diffuse and debate the Brazilian production of modern architecture, and whose editions, casually, were promoted or managed by female architects.
Traditionally, the sources for Latin American architecture studies have perpetuated the male interpretation, and Brazil cannot be excluded. However, for the subject under discussion, it is necessary to contemplate the synchronicity of other aspects that allow us to broaden the focus proposed here: on the one hand, in the transition between the nineteenth and twentieth century, the expansion of the avant-garde would arrive directly related to the technological development of graphic printing mechanisms and, consequently, these advances impacted the written press. On the other hand, it is relevant to consider the importance level that architectural magazines reached in Latin America. Here, the magazines not only have found a window of opportunity to inform about their advances, but they understood that their mission was to use their pages to convince and give journalistic credibility to the profession. Finally, as much has also been studied, much journalistic ink has been invested to explain the birth and development of modern architecture in Brazil.
When we account these considerations and the study's scope, Brazil between 1930 and 1955, it is possible to verify that behind the pages published by PDF, by L'architecture d'aujourd'hui, and by Habitat - Revista das artes no Brasil, there existed a managing potentialized by the work of four professionals, four modern women and, for being modern, also media professionals.
The Precursor: Carmen Portinho
The Revista da Direção de Engenharia da Prefeitura do Distrito Federal was formalized thanks to the enactment of Decree 3.759, on January 9, 1932 (Figure 1). Its publication was installed in a particular moment of the administrative and urban history of Rio, after the institutional reorganization that the municipality experienced at the time. It was launched to the public in July of the same year, including the first of several adjustments through which its title would undergo: Revista Municipal de Engenharia da Prefeitura do Distrito Federal and, finally, recognized by the institution's acronym PDF [Prefeitura do Distrito Federal].
Its first issue carried an editorial text signed by the director of the organ himself, Delso Mendes da Fonseca, who stated: the magazine creation has the intent to inform the population of the Brazilian capital, Rio de Janeiro, about the projects and works undertaken by the engineering division of Rio's City Hall. However, behind the scenes, the figure of Carmen Portinho (Figure 2) was taking strength, promoting a path of progressive bias, a mark of her long career.
Portinho had a trajectory that made her not only the precursor of relevant professional issues but also as a chronicler of foreign magazines, especially the IV Congresso Pan-Americano de Arquitetos, held in Rio from June 19 to 30, 1930, during which she represented the state of Rio Grande do Norte. At the Federal District's City Hall, Carmen arrived as an engineer in 1926 and, after the organic changes in the institution that Delso da Fonseca installed, she embraced the mission of defending and registering the projects that marked Rio de Janeiro's urban progress, whether or not executed by the Engineering Board (Nobre, 1999). The opportunity to ensure this commitment coincided with the issue of the first issue of the journal, for which she was appointed editorial secretary, a position she would hold until 1934 when she was successively promoted first to editor-in-chief and then to the director, a position she held until 1938.
In the first publication, it is possible to glimpse the influence of Portinho, a recognized enthusiast of the new architecture, when it is published in the pages of the magazine the project for the Vila Operária da Gamboa (Figure 3), in Rio de Janeiro, with authorship of Lúcio Costa and Gregori Warchavchik whose record consigns it as the first modern housing of social interest designed in Brazil (MUCHINELLI, SANTOS, LOBO, 2009). In addition to this project, two articles of her own were published in the same issue, the first about the efforts made by Dutch architects eager to reform their country's architectural production ("Modern architecture in the Netherlands," page 7), while the second describes the disciplinary position that characterized her as an architect throughout her career. Therefore, under the title "Influence of our climate on prison architecture" (pages 14-16), Carmen points out that, "Modern architecture, with its reinforced concrete slabs overhanging the doors and windows, makes it easier to protect the building from the harsh summer sun"; in this and other paragraphs of the article, Carmen demonstrates not only her advanced concern in studying technical solutions for environmental comfort in tropical climates, but she also valued the importance of local and teamwork, for which she promoted.
In a tropical country like ours, the questions of orientation, insulation, ventilation, and refrigeration deserve special studies, studies that can only be done by ourselves, who have the most direct interest in the question. (...) we cannot expect our problems to be solved abroad. (Portinho, 1932)
Undoubtedly, they are visionary and hopeful articles at the same time, since their reading of bringing quality to inhospitable spaces such as prisons were aspects that could only be institutionalized in Brazil in 1984, with the entry into force of Law 7.210 (Viana, 2009).
Throughout its trajectory, the PDF maintained its original institutionally based editorial line, but Carmen Portinho's direction transformed it into an engine for the dissemination of Brazilian modern architecture, publishing reviews, manifestos, and works produced not only in the – at the time – the capital of the country, also encouraged and accounted for any discourse align with the principles of the new architectural variant. Among some examples of this, we can cite the November 1934 issue that brought Alexandre Altberg's texts about CIAM, as well as the ideas of Oscar Niemeyer, Lúcio Costa, Vital Brasil, Rino Levi, or Affonso Eduardo. Reidy, from whom we could read a total of twenty-two of the forty-four projects he made in his professional life.
It is evident the editorial effort that the magazine sustained in favor of modern ideals, registering examples installed throughout the country, this gesture, though, was only possible thanks to the privileged contacts with whom Portinho maintained a friendship and, to whom she gave space in the PDF editions: Le Corbusier and other international groups like "Praensens 2p", "Gatepac", "Mars", and "Tecton", among others. Portinho's democratic sense is also found in the project reports, balanced with their time and in congruence with the general spirit of the magazine that gave priority to projects with good architecture. Among these new features is the emblematic competition for the Ministry of Education and Public Health headquarters(1935), when the PDF content bypassed the winners to make way for proposals by Affonso Eduardo Reidy and Jorge Machado Moreira in association with Ernani de Vasconcellos (Figure 4).
It is rare to find a magazine within a government institution, on a municipal scale, whose pattern was not centered on advertising actions anchored in the political management of the time. Not by chance, Lucio Costa chose the PDF to publish, in January 1936, his canonical text - recognized as the manifesto of modern Brazilian architecture - "Razões para a nova arquitetura" (Reasons for new architecture) (Figure 5); Philip L. Goodwin also used its pages to organize, in 1942, his famous productions under the title Brazil builds: architecture new and old, 1652-1942. The list goes on with examples that confirm, in all cases, the congruence of the editorial management carried out by Carmen Portinho, whose commitment was to ensure that the PDF editions were installed as a journalistic platform for Brazil's architectural modernity (Segawa, 2014). At least that was the case until the end of 1937 when her replacement arrived at the head of the magazine and, the publication aligned its editions with other institutional peers and, since then, met the internal demands of the Engineering Department of the Rio de Janeiro City Hall(Sobreira, 2018).
The promoters: Maria Laura Osser and Giuseppina Pirro
According to Cappello (2017): "the beginning of the diffusion and reception of modern architecture abroad, will be possible through the interlocutions between the architects, the editors of the magazines and the authors of the published articles (...)". These proposals that crossed Brazilian borders also reveal another type of actor in this network of influences and journalistic information: the "correspondent"; a professional who often had the responsibility of promoting the exchange of unpublished material and who acted as a mediator - or, perhaps, as an interpreter - of news between publishers and architecture. This was the role played by architects María Laura Osser and Giuseppina Pirro, in the Editorial Board of the French magazine L'architecture d'aujourd'hui, between 1947 and 1950, the former and, from 1951 on, the latter, both responsible for the Brazilian news (Figure 6).
Maya's artistic abilities – as María Laura Osser was nicknamed – were demonstrated from her student days and continued after she graduated in architecture, dedicating herself to various aspects of publishing. She was responsible for the graphic proposal of Richard Neutra and Gregori Warchavchik's book, Social Architecture in Warm-Climate Countries. Her connection with offices of the vanguard of Brazilian architecture led André Bloc, founder, and editor of L'architecture d'aujourd'hui, to call on her to assume the position of Brazilian correspondent, a position María Laura shared with only two other Latin American colleagues: Wladimir Kaspé, from Mexico, and Ricardo Moller, from Argentina. (Picture 6)
The French magazine, which crystallized in its pages the interests of its creator, in addition to the encouragement of the Union pour l'Art group it was part of, combined journalistic variables and made the content of L'architecture d'aujourd'hui an advantageous channel for the promotion of modern architecture, regardless of the geographical location where it was produced (Bullock, 2019). In this setting that María Laura Osser participated in the September 1947 issue, number 13-14, no less, which was the first dedicated exclusively to the architectural promotion of the modern language made in Brazil. This issue, guided by Osser, had as its main objective to present the production of young Brazilian architects, but also included the text in letter format that Oscar Niemeyer dedicated to Le Corbusier about the country's architecture, "Ce qui manque à notre Architecture" and that was later reproduced in other editorial formats. (Figure 7).
Some authors inaccurately deduce that their relationship with the group of immigrant architects, based in São Paulo, favored them in promoting their works in L'architecture d'aujourd'hui. Regardless, analyzing the Brazilian content published in the magazine under Osser's correspondence indicates otherwise, since Rio de Janeiro architects represent a greater volume of publications, in addition to the presence of works from six other Brazilian states outside the Rio-SP axis (Merli, Méndez, 2021).
Osser continued in this role until 1951 when the position was taken by the architect Giuseppina Pirro, his former classmate at the university. Regardless, it was not the first time that Pirro's name appeared in the editions of the French publication: the project developed in a team with Lygia Fernandes, Francisco Bologna, and Israel Correia for the headquarters of the Jockey Club in Rio de Janeiro, which won third place in the preliminary design competition, was the cover of the 21st edition (November / December 1948) of L'architecture d'aujourd'hui. (Figure 8).
The successes of her student career and her first years of architectural production in Rio de Janeiro allowed Pirro to be quickly integrated into the upper echelons of the Institute of Brazilian Architects (IAB), being the first and only woman to integrate its board between 1950 and 1956. (Figure 9)
When Giuseppina Pirro was correspondent, she reiterated the habitual gesture to that of her predecessor in front of the magazine when L'architecture d'aujourd'hui published another double issue, 42-43, in August 1952, again exclusively dedicated to Brazilian production. Among the published projects, the one signed by Lygia Fernandes for a country house in Tijuca stands out; Lygia had also been a classmate of Giuseppina's, and this proposal of unique authorship probably installed her as the first Brazilian architect promoted by the French magazine.
The intense journalistic activity developed by Pirro was consistent with his performance within the IAB, where he was concerned with establishing a policy of dissemination of national architecture, inside or outside Brazil (Dudeque, 2019). And, this performance dedicated to the management and promotion of architecture itself – as did his colleague Carmen Portinho decades earlier – allowed him to coordinate other dissemination tasks at the IAB when, in 1953, he assumed responsibility for the "Comissão Nacional de Congressos e Exposições" for the organization and curation of the events organized by the institution (Figure 10).
The Defender: Lina Bo
Among the periodical productions that originated in Brazil, the Habitat emergence Habitat, a magazine of the arts in Brazil, produces a particular highlight in the editorial and artistic milieu of São Paulo, given its avant-garde qualities. There is a vast bibliography about its conception and content, which is beyond the scope of this article. However, in this section, it is necessary to highlight the action exercised by its creator, Achillina Bo.
Lina, as she became popularly known, together with her husband Pietro Maria Bardi edited the first issue of Habitat in December 1950. For the couple, the link with the publishing world has its origins in their home country, where Pietro worked at Quadrante and Lina dedicated herself to the pages of Belleza, Stile y Vetrina, and Negozio, as well as the magazine Domus – which she directed for a year – since then it is possible to notice their interest in the social debate, a subject that accompanied her throughout her career.
For Fabiana Terenzi Stuchi (2007), Habitat... was part of a project that aimed to modernize the Brazilian society, from the construction and dissemination of the discourse of modernity that integrated all the graphic arts, industrial design, architecture, and all artistic production committed to the ideals and construction of modern society. This was also reported in the "Preface" of its launching issue, published in October 1950, when Lina as director assured the magazine's intentions: promoting the arts produced inside and outside Brazilian borders and "... also architecture, already consecrated in the world, which will be presented in its most characteristic innovations and with solutions more in line with tropical society...".
Lina's stance can be read in all the editions, but her text published in March 1951 stands out, in which she writes with passion about ideological concepts of modern Brazilian architecture. In a kind of proclamation, she responded to criticisms from international colleagues, including some compatriots such as Zevi, to whom she sharply pointed out that:
"This lack of politeness, this rudeness, this taking and transforming without concern, is the strength of contemporary Brazilian architecture, it is a continuous possessing in itself, between the awareness of technique, spontaneity, and the ardor of primitive art. (...) How many are those who know how to distinguish the "authentic" modern from remastigating? (Bo Bardi, 1951)"
She even warned about the risks of using Brazilian modern architecture as a formal language, demonstrating, in this and other speeches of his authorship that were published, the firmness that would seal the national architectural production of the time and that, without a doubt, was coherent with the individual of his time (figure 11).
The magazine had Lina's editorial coordination and direction since its creation until 1954, when Habitat, besides being read in the main cities of the country, had already crossed borders to Italy, France, Portugal, Spain, and the United States and demonstrated, once again, strength in the diffusion of the Brazilian modern architecture. Habitat, besides promoting discussions, allied under a careful graphic project - also idealized by its mentor - the architectural production exposed in photos, drawings, and technical details, many times accompanied by explanatory texts reported by the authors themselves, among them Oscar Niemeyer, Vilanova Artigas, Rino Levi, Affonso Reidy, Henrique Mindlin, Gregori Warchavchik and, of course, Lina Bo Bardi herself.
The penultimate editorial signed by Lina was published on February 14, 1954, which after 14 issues published so far, offered a balance of what had been achieved with Habitat's editions. There she reported possible editorial exchanges, as well as the magazine's publication in Lisbon, Rome, Paris, and New York. Lina declared the end of this experimental phase of the magazine and the beginning of a new moment: "the constructive phase" in charge of her colleagues Abelardo de Souza and Geraldo Serra, who continued it until the 1960s. Lina was leaving the magazine to experience other directions. But she had created not only the magazine Habitat also a discursive habitat, a space of critical artistic enthusiasm in the context, an editorial environment capable of solidly confronting the detractors of the local architectural production.
Four avant-garde women, contributions that will complement the historiography of Latin American architecture.
Thanks to the legitimacy provided by the study of periodicals and taking into account the androcentric panorama that has guided the historiographical studies of architecture, it is at
least desirable to attempt a deconstruction of the existing canons to revalidate the participation of women in our profession.
In this sense, the previous paragraphs show some of these efforts that, added to the commitment made by these four professionals, allow us to know the importance that their media roles had in the promotion, dissemination, and consolidation of Brazilian modern architecture to a global level.
The four cases reviewed offer the possibility to break with the traditional canons of reading professional history. It also relocates them and their contemporaries in a particular historical moment for Brazilian architecture. Therefore, it was possible to observe Carmen Portinho focusing on the early days of the diffusion of modern principles throughout the country: Maria Laura Osser and Giuseppina Pirro as international spokespersons for local projects and, finally, Lina Bo Bardi as an advocate not only for the particularities of contemporary national architecture but also as agglutination of the visual arts, in an attitude consistent with the society of her time. Understanding the role of these women allows one to get rid of the lure that women's participation in architectural magazines was only in advertising illustrations.
Ana Gabriela Lima (2013), about Marina Waisman, indicates that architecture is beyond practical production, design, and construction architecture is also theory, history, and criticism. Therefore, one should understand the willingness and boldness that these women had in their different eras, especially in circumstances where architecture was predominantly dominated by men.
Carmen Portinho, Maria Laura Osser, Giuseppina Pirra, and Lina Bo, each from their place and moment, demonstrated their commitment to Brazilian modern architecture through their diffusion and consolidation, inside and outside the country. Bringing to light and valuing these efforts is urgent when it comes to complementing the historiography of Latin American architecture, including gender equality perspectives.
Footnotes:
[1] This text presents the progress and results of several projects developed in the first half of 2020, such as the doctoral thesis in progress by Ms. Giovanna Augusto Merli, entitled "Modernas Brasileiras. Contribution to a new historiography of brazilian modern architecture, 1930-1960, developed in the Programa de Doctorado en Arquitectura y Urbanismo of the Universidad del Bío-Bío (Chile) and the research projects DIUBB180502 1#R / 2018 and FAPEI-UBB-048, under the coordination of Dr. Patricia Méndez, Responsible Researcher.
[2] VELAZCO PORTINHO, Carmen (1903-2011). She graduated in 1924 as engineer-geographer from the Escola Politécnica do Rio de Janeiro and in 1926 as civil engineer from the same institution. In 1939 she completed her graduate studies at the Universidade do Distrito Federal, , becoming the first woman in Brazil to obtain the title of urban planner.
[3] Revista de Arquitectura de la Sociedad Central de Arquitectos, Buenos Aires
[4] Portinho, Carmen. "Influência de nosso clima na arquitetura das prisões”. Revista da Diretoria de Engenharia da Prefeitura do Distrito Federal, v. 1 nro. 1, Rio de Janeiro, (June 1932) pp. 14-16.
[5] Osser, María Laura (1922-2011). Born in Warsaw, "Maya", as she was known, stood out as a cartoonist even before she began her university studies. She graduated as an architect from the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes,, in Rio de Janeiro, in 1947, when she worked for Henrique Mindlin. Her prolific activity integrates areas related to the plastic arts, such as exhibitions of paintings and sculptures of her own authorship, besides graphic design.
[6] In this case, Falbel (2016) comments that "We could speculate that the intermediation of the Brazilian correspondent, Maria Laura Osser, with origins in the immigrant group would have facilitated the presence of architects. Effectively, from 1951, when the architect Giuseppina Pirro becomes the magazine's new correspondent, the presence of the Rio Group in the magazine's pages seems to strengthen (...)" p. 15.
[7] Pirro, Giuseppina (no data). Possibly the daughter of immigrants, she graduated as an architect from the National School of Fine Arts (ENBA) in Rio de Janeiro in 1945, receiving the prize awarded by the Institute of Architects of Brazil to the student with the best grades. She was a member of the Institute of Brazilian Architects (IAB), in which she actively participated during her professional life, worked as a teacher in the same institution where she graduated, today transformed into the National College, and practiced the profession privately, eventually associating with colleagues such as Francisco Bolonha, Lygia Fernandes and Jorge Machado Moreira.
[8] Di Enrico Bo, Achillina (1914-1992). Italian, graduated from the Mamiani Artistic Lyceum (1933) and architect at the University of Valle Giulia in Rome in 1939. Settled in Milan at Gio Ponti's studio, she designed interiors, exhibition stands, and industrial fairs. In 1946, she moved to Brazil with her husband. With her arrival in Brazil, she gives continuity to her production, which, being intense and avant-garde, stands out for its social concern.
[9] Bo Bardi, Lina. Bela Criança. Habitat, São Paulo, n. 2, jan.-mar. 1951, p.3.
[10] Who argued that the Brazilian architectural plasticity corresponded to a deviation from European references.
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Authors:
Giovanna Augusto Merli -
Architect (UFU); Master in Architecture and Urban Space Production (Federal University of Uberlândia); Doctoral student in Architecture and Urbanism (Universidad del Bío-Bío - Chile). Professor and researcher in international research projects.
Patricia Méndez-
Architect (UBA); Master in Cultural Management (University of Barcelona); Ph.D. in Social Sciences (FLACSO). CONICET Independent Researcher. Academic at Universidad del Bio Bio (Chile). Technical Coordinator CEDODAL. Works in the historiography of Latin American architecture in the 20th-century media. Member of scientific committees of scientific journals, author of books, articles in conventional journals, and principal researcher in international research projects.
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