On the Trails of Niemeyer 1 On the Trails of Niemeyer Uncovering Brazilian Modernism Benedict Etz Prepared for the Lord Rootes Memorial Fund trustees in partial fulfilment of the conditions of receipt of a LRMF award 29 November 2018 On the Trails of Niemeyer 2 Words: [email protected] of Figures _ 3 above - figure 1: guide front cover Synopsis _ 4 Acknowledgements _ 5 Introduction _ 6 Before cities, transport and accommodation _ 8 technology, safety and precautionary measures _ 10 During methodology _ 13 Belém _ 18 Fortaleza _ 24 Recife (and Olinda) _ 29 Salvador _ 36 Brasília _ 42 Belo Horizonte (and Inhotim) _ 49 Vitória (and Vila Velha) _ 53 Rio de Janeiro _ 58 São Paulo _ 67 Curitiba _ 76 Porto Alegre _ 82 After content creation _ 90 future aspirations _ 92 Analysis and personal reflection general analysis _ 94 limitations _ 95 personal reflection and development _ 97 summary _ 99 recommendations _ 100 On the Trails of Niemeyer 3 Financial report _ 102 Table of Figures figure 1 – guide front cover _ 1 figure 2 – Belém 1 _ 19 figure 3 – Belém 2 _ 20 figure 4 – Belém 3 _ 21 figure 5 – Belém 4 _ 23 figure 6 – Fortaleza 1 _ 25 figure 7 – Fortaleza 2 _ 26 figure 8 – Fortaleza 3 _ 27 figure 9 – Fortaleza 4 _ 28 figure 10 – Recife 1 _ 30 figure 11 – Recife 2 _ 31 figure 12 – Recife 3 _ 32 figure 13 – Recife 4 _ 33 figure 14 – Recife 5 _ 34 figure 15 – Recife 6 _ 35 figure 16 – Salvador 1 _ 36 figure 17 – Salvador 2 _ 37 figure 18 – Salvador 3 _ 38 figure 19 – Salvador 4 _ 39 figure 20 – Salvador 5 _ 40 figure 21 – Salvador 6 _ 41 figure 22 – Brasília 1 _ 42 figure 23 – Brasília 1 _ 44 figure 24 – Brasília 1 _ 45 figure 25 – Brasília 1 _ 46 figure 26 – Brasília 1 _ 47 figure 27 – Brasília 1 _ 48 On the Trails of Niemeyer 4 figure 28 – Belo Horizone 1 _ 49 figure 29 – Belo Horizone 2 _ 50 figure 30 – Belo Horizone 3 _ 51 figure 31 – Belo Horizone 4 _ 52 figure 32 – Vitória 1 _ 53 figure 33 – Vitória 2 _ 54 figure 34 – Vitória 3 _ 55 figure 35 – Vitória 4 _ 56 figure 36 – Vitória 5 _ 57 figure 37 – Rio de Janeiro 1 _ 58 figure 38 – Rio de Janeiro 2 _ 59 figure 39 – Rio de Janeiro 3 _ 61 figure 40 – Rio de Janeiro 4 _ 62 figure 41 – Rio de Janeiro 5 _ 62 figure 42 – Rio de Janeiro 6 _ 63 figure 43 – Rio de Janeiro 7 _ 64 figure 44 – Rio de Janeiro 8 _ 65 figure 45 – Rio de Janeiro 9 _ 66 figure 46 – São Paulo 1 _ 67 figure 47 – São Paulo 2 _ 68 figure 48 – São Paulo 3 _ 70 figure 49 – São Paulo 4 _ 71 figure 50 – São Paulo 5 _ 72 figure 51 – São Paulo 6 _ 73 figure 52 – São Paulo 7 _ 74 figure 53 – São Paulo 8 _ 75 figure 54 – Curitiba 1 _ 76 figure 55 – Curitiba 2 _ 77 figure 56 – Curitiba 3 _ 78 figure 57 – Curitiba 4 _ 79 On the Trails of Niemeyer 5 figure 58 – Curitiba 5 _ 80 figure 59 – Curitiba 6 _ 80 figure 60 – Curitiba 7 _ 81 figure 61 – Porto Alegre 1 _ 83 figure 62 – Porto Alegre 1 _ 84 figure 63 – Porto Alegre 1 _ 85 figure 64 – Porto Alegre 1 _ 86 figure 65 – Porto Alegre 1 _ 87 figure 66 – Porto Alegre 1 _ 88 figure 67 – Porto Alegre 1 _ 89 On the Trails of Niemeyer 6 Synopsis This project saw me travel around Brazil during 40 days, staying in 11 state capital cities, while also visiting some other smaller nearby cities and locations, with the objective of learning more about the Brazilian modernist architecture that is central to each of their built environments. I tried to capture the most historically important and aesthetically innovative architectural works in all of these cities, so that after returning I could create a guide of Brazil’s modernist architectural movement. I tried to discover the most striking structures in each city by combining a few core strategies: prior research, talking to local experts and architecture students, and walking around city centres and other areas famed for their architecture. This approach meant that I could make sure I did not miss many foundational and seminal buildings of the style, but also that I could capture the general surroundings and find lesser-known works worthy of recognition. Ultimately it is very difficult for any book on architecture to encompass all important works, especially given the large quantity of modernist constructions in this style in Brazil, and so sometimes I decided to leave out certain buildings from my guide in order to focus on those that are especially essential. While travelling I also made sure to write blog posts about the architectural background of each of the cities I visited, and updated my specially created Instagram fairly often, as a way of sharing my experience with friends and others that showed interest in my project and in Brazilian modernist architecture. In addition to the content discussed above, that was already planned before starting my trip in Brazil, I have also started the more ambitious project of creating a website that acts as a catalogue of Brazilian modernist buildings. This however still requires much work and as such, I am still unsure as to its date of launch. Here are the links to my content: On the Trails of Niemeyer 7 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trailsofniemeyer/ Wordpress blog: https://trailsofniemeyer.wordpress.com/ Issuu for my guide: https://issuu.com/trailsofniemeyer/docs/trailsproject Website: TBC Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Lord Rootes Memorial Fund committee for allowing me the opportunity to undertake this project, which was an even greater experience than initially expected. The extent that I personally benefitted from this project, in terms of experience and personal development, is still only revealing itself. I would also like to thank my parents for their continued support before, during and after my time in Brazil. Without their helpful guidance, I would have found it difficult to meet all the necessary preparations and some pre-existing bureaucratic hurdles would have been much more difficult to overcome. I would also like to acknowledge my friend Mariana, who helped greatly as I was learning Portuguese. Without occasionally practicing both my written and spoken Portuguese with her, my time in Brazil would have been much difficult, and for this I am grateful. Her helpful pointers about Brazil also greatly aided my preparation for the trip. I am also incredibly grateful to the people that made my time in Brazil memorable. In chronological order of meeting, I would like to thus also thank Max, Luana, Felix, Elisa, Pierre, Kaiya, Carolina, Victoria, Isabella, Raphael, Joel, Alicia, Felipe, Arthur, Nina, Julia, Bárbara, Sebastian, João, Amanda, Tasha, Craig, Hugh, Thai, Nátalia, Daise, Thais, Gabriel and Abdullah for making my time in Brazil so memorable. Finally, I would also like to express my gratitude to all of my other friends that offered moral support throughout the entire process. On the Trails of Niemeyer 8 Introduction This report will describe the outcomes of my Trails of Niemeyer project, while also exploring in depth how I approached each of the stages of this project, from planning it to being on the road in Brazil, to writing the self-published guide that is available on issuu at: https://issuu.com/trailsofniemeyer/docs/trailsproject This project was a great opportunity for me to expand a number of personal interests, principally urbanism and architectural history, while enabling me to better understand Brazilian culture, which I had previously only known from afar. It also allowed me to experience solo travel for the first, and certainly not the last, time. In addition, it provided an excellent opportunity for me to improve certain skills, including publishing and photography, while giving me the opportunity to share my aforementioned interests in an accessible and free way to anyone with curiosity to find out more about the topics covered in my book and blog. The motivations behind this project were not exclusively personal, however. At the root of this project was my aspiration to teach others about an undervalued and oft forgotten Brazilian cultural output: its modernist architecture, which has forged a different path to similar architectural movements in other countries, especially as the style has flourished until now in Brazil, while the general international consensus holds the modernist movement to have ended several decades ago in most other countries, as well as at the international level. Due to certain risks in Brazil (which will be outlined later in the report1) I decided that my iPhone 6 was the only necessary equipment for me to capture photographs and share content while travelling in Brazil. The photographs I took of urban environments and specific buildings could naturally have been superior if I had bought expensive photographic equipment but for the purposes of my guide this was not necessary, especially as modern iPhones are equipped with excellent 1 See page xxy, from the limitations section On the Trails of Niemeyer 9 cameras. My phone was also incredibly useful for research while in cities, for using Uber, which I had to use on numerous occasions due to lacking public transport infrastructure and the risks of walking, as well as sharing content on my project’s Instagram profile and Wordpress blog.