HORIZONS: POLITICAL AND ARCHITECTONICS Niemeyer and Kubitschek 1940-1961

• Grant number: 16/13340-2
• Support type: Regular Research Grants
• Duration: March 01, 2017 - February 28, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning - Fundamentals of Architecture and Urbanism
• Principal researcher: Rafael Augusto Urano de Carvalho Frajndlich
• Grantee: Rafael Augusto Urano de Carvalho Frajndlich
• Home Institution: Faculdade de Engenharia Civil, Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FEC). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Assoc. researchers: Mário Henrique Simão D'Agostino ; Monica Junqueira de Camargo

Abstract

This research project seeks to study how the relationship between Architect Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012) and the Politician Juscelino Kubitschek (1902-1976) has touched founding issues to the Brazilian Modern Architecture. It will be studied the hypothesis that projects and buildings that resulted from the association between Niemeyer and Kubitschek - two protagonists of the recent History of Brazil - since Pampulha until Brasilia represent the crystallization of a complex and eventually conflicting relationship in the ideological plan. It is an overall consensus to state that, from 1940 on, Kubitschek and Niemeyer have built the longest and more productive relation commissioner-architect in the name of the State ever existent in Brazil. The wide existing historiography on Niemeyer's work recognizes the importance of such association, but there still haven't been made a specific study on how this proximity between project of aesthetic and power. Likewise, there are several philological gaps that may clarify important aspects of a relationship that although well known in its outlines, still remains obscure. Through a four years span, it is intended to gather a collection of primary documentation on Kubitschek and Niemeyer about their experiences between 1940 and 1961. From the analysis of these documents, we expect to develop new interpretations on Niemeyer's work and how it was related to an overall modern teleology of design of the Country: to compare political and architectonic horizons and give them an exact measurement. (AU)