Avant-garde and Populism: Workers' Party and Architecture in the Redemocratization of Brazil.

• Grant number: 25/07058-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: October 01, 2025
• End date: September 30, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning - Fundamentals of Architecture and Urbanism
• Principal Investigator: Rafael Augusto Urano de Carvalho Frajndlich
• Grantee: Frederico Vergueiro Costa
• Supervisor: Vanessa Grossman
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Engenharia Civil, Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FEC). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of Pennsylvania, United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 22/10167-9 - Avant-garde and Nostalgia Workers' Party and Contemporary Architecture in São Paulo., BP.DR

Abstract

The Workers' Party (PT), created in 1980 during Brazil's re-democratization, won the municipal elections in the country's most populous city, São Paulo, in 1988, led by the Mayor Luiza Erundina. It was an unprecedented opportunity to demonstrate the party's ruling abilities and to bring together architects aligned with its ideals. The government was notable for its housing policy supported by social movements, for promoting the Urban Reform agenda and for implementing innovations in historical heritage urban policies. An architectural synthesis of these efforts was the project for the new city hall, moved back to the historic center of the city, in an area with an intense popular presence. The commission for the architect Lina Bo Bardi highlights the party's ambiguous relationship with the tradition of Brazilian Modern architecture and its political ties. This research aims to investigate the impact of the political and ideological transformations at the end of the Cold War in Latin America on architecture and the particularities of the emerging New Left. In this context, the ideological aspects of architecture oscillate between the new third-world and populist perspectives, on the one hand, and a resistance to international postmodernism as a way of preserving architecture's links with the avant-garde tradition. (AU)