Women, archives and design education: connected trajectoires in São Paulo in the 1950s and 1960s

• Grant number: 23/06760-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: July 01, 2024
• Status: Discontinued
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Industrial Design
• Principal Investigator: Ana Paula Cavalcanti Simioni
• Grantee: Ana Julia Melo Almeida
• Host Institution: Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros (IEB). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/18233-6 - Circulation of pedagogical practices in design and applied arts between Brazil and Europe, BE.EP.PD

Abstract

This project aims to investigate the clashes and disputes around teaching practices in design and architecture in the 1950s and 1960s, based on the professional activities of Elisabeth Nobiling (1902-1975), Lina Bo Bardi (1914- 1992) and Renina Katz (1925). The three trajectories are part of a larger context toward the institutionalization of higher education in design. Even at a time when the field is directly linked to training in architecture and arts. The paths of the professors begin to cross when they worked at Instituto de Arte Contemporânea (IAC) of the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP), in the 1950s. Soon after, they are part of a professional transit from the IAC-MASP to the Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo e de Design da Universidade de São Paulo (FAUUSP), where they remain as professors for different duration. Starting from these trajectories, but expanding them to a group of eight professionals who made up this transit in the 1950s, we seek to reflect on the flows and circulations present in their trajectories, in relation to the social context in which they were formed, as well as the period in which they worked in teaching practice. Our intention is also to reconstruct the clashes involved in the field of design training, between visions, on the one hand, marked by a technicist and specialized perspective, and on the other from a broader view, connecting the fields of art, architecture and design. Finally, it is worth noting that the research will focus on the engenders involved in the processes of cataloging and the archives, having as a starting point the FAUUSP, the IEB-USP e the MAC USP Archives, reflecting on the asymmetries in the constitution of historical registers.