The work of João Filgueiras Lima in the context of contemporary architectural culture

Author(s)

Ana Gabriella Lima Guimarães

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU/SBI)
• Defense date: 2010-04-15

Examining board members

Hugo Massaki Segawa; Anália Maria Marinho de Carvalho Amorim; Cláudia Estrela Porto; Yopanan Conrado Pereira Rebello; Ruth Verde Zein

• Advisor: Hugo Massaki Segawa

Abstract

This thesis expounds on the significance of the work of architect João Filgueiras Lima, popularly known as Lelé, in the context of contemporary international architectural culture, and aims to establish parallels and/or links between his work and that of architects like Norman Foster, Nicholas Grimshaw, Michael Hopkins and Renzo Piano, among others. By taking into account the experiences of the Sarah Network Technology Center (CTRS), a research center inaugurated in 1992 to support the development and improvement of pre-fabricated constructive systems implemented in the construction of public buildings in several Brazilian state capitals, and an analysis of work carried out in the European scene from the 1990s onwards (especially in Great Britain), it is possible to view ideological concerns, methodological procedures, programmatic concepts, formal expressions and technological innovation in Lelés work as proof of its modernity, thus pointing towards a promising new horizon for contemporary international architecture. Demonstrating the connection of his work to recent undertakings by renowned architects involving the great issues being debated at the turn of the 21st Century - such as high-technology in architecture, energy efficiency, environmental comfort, the limits of natural resources, the economy of means and sustainability - are fundamental in the understanding of the purposes of a form of architecture that is being heralded as the renewed expression of a new concept of modernity. (AU)