The material as an argument for the History of Architecture: a study of aluminium from the methodological proposals of Sérgio Ferro

• Grant number: 22/00107-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: December 01, 2022
• End date: March 10, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning - Fundamentals of Architecture and Urbanism
• Principal Investigator: João Marcos de Almeida Lopes
• Grantee: Raíssa Pereira Cintra de Oliveira
• Host Institution: Instituto de Arquitetura e Urbanismo de São Carlos (IAU). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The research project proposed here intends to continue a critical historical investigation within the line of research on the material production of architecture, started in my doctoral thesis, in which I studied the design and construction of the Parque Anhembi - a complex designed for trade fairs, built in São Paulo in the late 1960s. The proposal, now, is to give more relevance to the investigation of aluminium - the main material used in the production of the roof structure of one of the buildings of the complex, the Pavilhão de Exposições -, considering the methodological propositions of Sérgio Ferro. Thus, following the example of studies already prepared by Ferro (such as "Michelangelo - arquiteto e escultor da Capela dos Médici", published in Brazil in 2016), the aim of the work is to understand the traces of invisible work, from the remote bauxite mining facilities, to the most sophisticated processes of production of aluminum components for construction in Brazil, thus seeking to build another historical perspective on the object. To this end, the research will investigate the material basis of architectural production, traversing other interpretative fields, reorienting hitherto canonical narratives, many of them initially focused on the formal choices of a particular architectural product. By seeking the contradictions existing in the dynamics of material production, it will be likely to understand architecture and its construction as a dense source for historical social and economic investigation, and therefore, to understand it within the wider logic of value reproduction and accumulation. The investigative proposal will follow complementary research directions: production, mining itself (the exploitation of bauxite, raw material for the production of aluminium), circulation and consumption (demands, narratives, details and specifications). In this path of re-examination of history, and within the contradictions embedded in the material, it will also be possible to question normalized behaviors even today on the use of aluminum and its specification in the project. (AU)