The role of third dimensional modelling at Oscar Niemeyer’s architectural design process by his assistant model-maker Gilberto Antunes

• Grant number: 11/12680-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: September 01, 2011
• End date: August 31, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning - Architecture and Urbanism Technology
• Principal Investigator: Artur Simões Rozestraten
• Grantee: Juliana Eiko Hiroki
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research studies the role of third-dimensional models in Oscar Niemeyer's design process based on the architect's relationship with his collaborator for more than forty years, the model-maker Gilberto Carneiro Arsene Antunes. Supporting the architect's production for decades, but undiffused, and still not studied, Gilberto Antunes extends considerably the understanding of the interaction between two-dimensional and three-dimensional elements in the architectural design process of Oscar Niemeyer. What is especially relevant considering that this process is widely known as exclusively graphic and concentrated in a few synthetic and expressive sketches. This research on the study models of the architect, and the dialogue process with his collaborator-model-maker, can allow reconfigurations on the understanding of Niemeyer's design process and, by extension, on the last decades Brazilian architectural design processes and production. (AU)