Legacy in spotlight

Researchers and scholars on the life and works of Lina Bo and Pietro Maria Bardi will soon have easier access to the archives of the architects.

By Elton Alisson

Agência FAPESP – Researchers and scholars on the life and works of Lina Bo and Pietro Maria Bardi will soon have easier access to the archives of the married Italian architects, best known in Brazil for having founded and directed  Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (São Paulo Art Museum - Masp), which played an important role in the history of Brazilian culture and modern art.

The process of cataloging, digitalizing and creating an online database of the Lina Bo and Pietro Maria Bardi Institute’s archives has begun. Slated for conclusion in April 2012, the project received FAPESP funding through the Support Program for Research Infrastructure, under the Museums and Depositary Centers of Information and Documents and Biological Collections.

Comprised of drawings, photographs, text documents, publications and erudite and popular art, the archive is housed in a public heritage site located in São Paulo known as the Glass House, which was formerly the couple’s home and was donated by Pietro in 1995 to house the institute bearing his name. Until Pietro’s death in 1999, access to the archive, which covers the different area in which the couple was active from Italy to Brazil, was very restricted. But although well guarded, there was no complete catalog of the 7,000 drawings, 15,000 photos and roughly 6,000 to 7,000 written documents, in addition to the library and works of art that comprise the archive.

As of 2007, the Lina Bo and Pietro Maria Bardi Institute – originally founded in 1990 to disseminate and promote Brazilian art and culture in Brazil and abroad - initiated an in-house project for identifying and cataloguing the entire archive.

In the last two years, the Institute began a project for digital registration (photography) of drawings and acquisition of appropriate furnishings, including new sliding files, to improve conditions for consulting and preserving the documents.

Now, through a project supported by FAPESP, the process of cataloging and digitalizing the archive has gained a new impetus. The Institute is acquiring new furnishings like sliding file cabinets, tables and chairs to create archive viewing stations that are more appropriate and closer to where documents are stored. Under the project, the Institute has also begun creating a database that will allow researchers to have internet access to the archives main data, including images.

“We are improving preservation infrastructure and access to the archive, because we didn’t have the means to serve the enormous demand from researchers in São Paulo and other states, and mainly, from abroad,” explains Renato Luiz Sobral Anelli, project coordinator and professor at the Institute of Architecture and Urbanism at Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Carlos campus, to Agência FAPESP.

According Anelli, there is growing number of research projects on the works of Lina and Pietro Bardi, many of which are currently underway at the main large public universities and other Brazilian states, in addition private higher education institutions and architecture and urbanism research centers.

The works of Lina Bo Bardi are constantly being exhibited abroad. The most recent exhibitions were in Japan, England, Italy and Spain, in addition to the special showrooms at the 2010 and 2004 Venice Biennial of Architecture shows and other smaller exhibits.

This international interest, explains Anelli, is related to the fact that the works of Italian-born and naturalized Brazilian architect are seen as an example of cultural modernization supported by the diverse popular traditions like African, indigenous and Portuguese influences in architecture and contemporary design. 

“At a time when the world is focused on multiculturalness, the works of Lina Bo Bardi appear in architecture and design circles as a possible to path for the coexistence of diverse cultures. This has prompted many researcher and even curators to get to know and promote the archive,” he affirms.

An example of multiculturalism

Some of the most striking items of the archive, according to Anelli, are Lina’s concept drawings, which are very peculiar due to their artistic quality and because they express a very rare form of project conception for the Brazilian scenario.

Among the texts many have never been made public, particularly correspondence through which it is possible to map how the architect and her husband communicated with other architects and intellectuals.

 Believed to be linked to the neorealist movement in Italy, where she began his research on Italian popular art, when she arrived in Brazil with Pietro, Lina encountered Afro-Brazilian culture during her stay in the Northeast.

Pietro, on the other hand, viewed Brazil as an opportunity to constitute a museum of modern art that would simultaneously serve as a center of Brazilian cultural renewal at a time in which Brazil was experiencing an intense industrialization process.

To this end, in conjunction with creating Masp – where Pietro was founder and director until the 90s and Lina provided the architectural and museographical project – the couple also founded a contemporary art institute, which offered the first industrial design course in Brazil, in addition other about art, cinema and propaganda and marketing.

“They recognized that the country’s political, economic and social moment was opportune and elaborated a cultural project that was very successful in several aspects,” says Anelli.

In addition to participating throughout the project, Lina also viewed Brazil as an opportunity to have direct contact with Brazilian popular manifestations , which she incorporated into her conception of design objects, furniture, exhibitions and scenographies, an in the projects she developed in Salvador, Bahia at the beginning of the 60s and in the 80s in São Paulo. Among these projects are the restoration and recovery Bahia landmarks, Solar do Unhão  (an old sugar mill) and the Pelourinho (Salvador’s historic downtown).  In São Paulo, her most famous works are Sesc Pompeia and Masp.

“With the availability of the online archive on the Bardis, we will be able to promote more of their works. The selection and choice of materials for exhibitions and publications in several languages will be quicker,” says Anelli.