Gustavo Capanema Palace: Difference between revisions
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[[Image:MESP4.jpg|thumb|300px|right|The façade of the palace, in downtown Rio de Janeiro.]] |
[[Image:MESP4.jpg|thumb|300px|right|The façade of the palace, in downtown Rio de Janeiro.]] |
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[[Image:Gustavo_Capanema_Palace,_Rio_de_Janeiro,_Brazil_(main_entrance,_2004).jpg|thumb|300px|right|The pillars of the main entrance, facing south.]] |
[[Image:Gustavo_Capanema_Palace,_Rio_de_Janeiro,_Brazil_(main_entrance,_2004).jpg|thumb|300px|right|The pillars of the main entrance, facing south.]] |
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The '''Gustavo Capanema Palace''' (in [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]], ''Palácio Gustavo Capanema'') is an office building in [[Rio de Janeiro]] that is one of the finest examples of Brazilian modernist architecture. It was designed by a team composed of [[Lucio Costa]] (future designer of the layout of Brazil's modernist capital Brasília), along with [[Affonso Eduardo Reidy]], [[Ernani Vasconcellos]], [[Carlos Leão]] and [[Jorge Machado Moreira]]. [[Oscar Niemeyer]], who was to become Brazil's best-known architect, also took an important role in the design process, as an intern in Costa's office. The group invited |
The '''Gustavo Capanema Palace''' (in [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]], ''Palácio Gustavo Capanema'') is an office building in [[Rio de Janeiro]] that is one of the finest examples of Brazilian modernist architecture. It was designed by a team composed of [[Lucio Costa]] (future designer of the layout of Brazil's modernist capital Brasília), along with [[Affonso Eduardo Reidy]], [[Ernani Vasconcellos]], [[Carlos Leão]] and [[Jorge Machado Moreira]]. [[Oscar Niemeyer]], who was to become Brazil's best-known architect, also took an important role in the design process, as an intern in Costa's office. The group invited Swiss-French architect [[Le Corbusier]] to oversee the project, which was designed in 1935-1936. Construction was begun by the Getúlio Vargas government in [[1939]] and was completed in [[1943]], to house Brazil's new Ministry of Education and Health. In 1960 the national capital was moved to [[Brasília]], while the building became a Rio office for the ministry, which it remains today. |
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The building is named after author and educator [[Gustavo Capanema]], who was the first Minister of Education of Brazil. It is located at Rua da Imprensa, 16, in the downtown Rio area of Castelo. Delighted with the shape of [[Guanabara Bay]], Corbusier suggested that the building should be located next to the sea, instead of on an inner downtown street, but the government declined. |
The building is named after author and educator [[Gustavo Capanema]], who was the first Minister of Education of Brazil. It is located at Rua da Imprensa, 16, in the downtown Rio area of Castelo. Delighted with the shape of [[Guanabara Bay]], Corbusier suggested that the building should be located next to the sea, instead of on an inner downtown street, but the government declined. |
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Revision as of 23:20, 20 July 2011
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The Gustavo Capanema Palace (in Portuguese, Palácio Gustavo Capanema) is an office building in Rio de Janeiro that is one of the finest examples of Brazilian modernist architecture. It was designed by a team composed of Lucio Costa (future designer of the layout of Brazil's modernist capital Brasília), along with Affonso Eduardo Reidy, Ernani Vasconcellos, Carlos Leão and Jorge Machado Moreira. Oscar Niemeyer, who was to become Brazil's best-known architect, also took an important role in the design process, as an intern in Costa's office. The group invited Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier to oversee the project, which was designed in 1935-1936. Construction was begun by the Getúlio Vargas government in 1939 and was completed in 1943, to house Brazil's new Ministry of Education and Health. In 1960 the national capital was moved to Brasília, while the building became a Rio office for the ministry, which it remains today.
The building is named after author and educator Gustavo Capanema, who was the first Minister of Education of Brazil. It is located at Rua da Imprensa, 16, in the downtown Rio area of Castelo. Delighted with the shape of Guanabara Bay, Corbusier suggested that the building should be located next to the sea, instead of on an inner downtown street, but the government declined.
The project was extremely bold for the time. It was the first modernist public building in the Americas, and on a much larger scale than anything Le Corbusier had built until then. Modernism as an aesthetic movement had a great impact in Brazil, and the building -- which housed the office charged with cultivating Brazilian formal culture -- included various elements of the movement. It employed local materials and techniques, like the ceramic tiles (azulejos) linked to the Portuguese tradition; Corbusian brises-soleil, made adjustable and related to the Moorish shading devices of Brazilian colonial architecture; bold colours; Imperial Palms (roystonea oleraceæ) known as the Brazilian order; tropical gardens of the great landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx; and specially commissioned works of other Brazilian artists. Most notable are the aquatic-motif mural tiles outside and large wall paintings inside by Cândido Portinari, Brazil's most famous painter.
The building is especially important in Brazilian architectural history, where modernism gained great momentum, seen as an aesthetic turning of the page against the "old" Brazil, rural, undeveloped, conservative, and poor. Members of the design group Brazilianized Le Corbusier's somewhat cold European approach and created a style that is still predominant in Brazil today. Beside Costa, Niemayer, and Burle Marx, who respectively defined Brasília's architecture, layout, and lanscaping, Afonso Eduardo Reidy and Burle Marx also worked on Rio's unique bay-side park, the Aterro do Flamengo, in which Reidy designed the Museum of Modern Art.
The building is also interesting in political history. Le Corbusier and the European modernist architects were a leftist school of thought, and the Brazilian modernist movement was also left-leaning, with many of its proponents, such as Oscar Niemeyer, active in the Communist Party of Brazil. Yet the Gustavo Capanema Palace was built by a government that had taken power by armed force in 1930 and slipped further right into outright dictatorship in 1937, violently suppressing leftists and copying elements of Italian fascism in his attempted re-foudning of Brazil as an "Estado Novo," or "New State." This was just as fascism and dictatorship were reaching peak power in Europe, and Vargas dabbled with loyalty to the Axis. Brazil, however, ultimately sided with the US and its Allies, and the Gustavo Capanema Palace was finished in mid-World War II as Brazilian soldiers were being sent to Italy to fight against fascism.
Film
There is a footage of the setting of the first stone of the building, supposedly shot by Humberto Mauro, the most important Brazilian filmmaker of the time. In those scenes, minister Gustavo Capanema is shown delivering a speech with a synchronized sound. Also can be seen poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade, intellectual Roquette Pinto, among others. The footage is currently kept at the CTAv - Centro Técnico Audiovisual (Audiovisual Technical Center) archive, in Rio de Janeiro. They were included in the feature length documentary Pampulha ou a invenção do mar de Minas, directed by Oswaldo Caldeira.
Books
- BRUAND, Yves; Arquitetura contemporânea no Brasil; São Paulo: Editora Perspectiva, 1981, ISBN 8527301148
- CAVALCANTI, Lauro. Quando o Brasil era moderno : guia de arquitetura 1928-1960. Rio de Janeiro: Aeroplano, 2001.
- COMAS, Carlos Eduardo Dias. Precisões Brasileiras. Paris: Tese de Doutorado, 2002.
- COMAS, Carlos Eduardo Dias. Protótipo e monumento, um ministério, o ministério. Projeto. ago. 1987, n. 102: p. 136-149.
- COSTA, Lucio. Lucio Costa: registro de uma vivencia. São Paulo: Editora UNB/Empresa das Artes, 1995.
- COSTA, Lucio. Edificio do Ministério da Educação e Saude. AU-Arquitetura e Urbanismo. Rio de Janeiro. jul./ago. 1939: p. 543-551.
- COSTA, Lucio. Ministério, da participação de Baumgart à revelação de Niemeyer. Projeto. ago. 1987, n. 102: p. 158-160.
- HARRIS, Elizabeth D. Le Corbusier: Riscos Brasileiros. São Paulo: Nobel, 1987.
- LISSOVSKY, Maurício e Paulo Sérgio Moraes de Sá (organizadores). Colunas da educação: a construção do Ministério da Educação e Saúde(1935–1945). Rio de Janeiro: MINC/IPHAN, 1996.
- MINDLIN, Henrique Ephim. Arquitetura moderna no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Aeroplano Editora, 2000.
- Revista PDF Concurso de ante-projetos para o Ministério d Educação e Saúde Pública. Revista da Diretoria de Engenharia (PDF). set. 1935: p. 510.
- VASCONCELLOS, Juliano Caldas de. Concreto Armado, Arquitetura Moderna, Escola Carioca: levantamentos e notas. Dissertação (Mestrado em Arquitetura) - Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (PROPAR), 2004 313p.
- XAVIER, Alberto. Arquitetura Moderna no Rio de Janeiro. São Paulo: Pini: Fundação Vilanova Artigas, 1991.