Eduardo Kneese de Mello: from ecletic to modern

Author(s)

Aline Nassaralla Regino

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU/SBI)
• Defense date: 2011-05-27

Examining board members

Rafael Antonio Cunha Perrone; Fernando Atique; Luis Antonio Jorge; Julio Roberto Katinsky; José Geraldo Simões Júnior

• Advisor: Rafael Antonio Cunha Perrone

Abstract

The major purpose of this thesis has originated from the presentation and assessment of the residential designs of Architect Eduardo Kneese de Mello (1906-1994) along his career in the city of São Paulo. In order to understand the main features of his work, we deemed necessary to explore his academic background based on the two major Architecture courses existing in this city - Polytechnic School of the University of Sao Paulo - (Escola Politécnica da Universidade de São Paulo) and School of Engineering of Mackenzie University (Escola de Engenharia da Universidade Mackenzie) - during the two first decades of the 20th century. We did this trying to reach the possibility to evidence one of the premises of this survey, that is based on the fact that the first stage of the professional path of Kneese de Mello is related to the learning obtained from his university studies. The development of the work, as may be seen, has revealed that many of such knowledge and means of creating have remained in his work even after his well-known conversion to the precepts of the Modern Movement. We do then present and assess a series of residences designed by the Architect. Most of the production assessed (39 designs out of the 45 selected for the case studies) is linked to the late Eclecticism of the 1930s and 1940s, when wealthier families from Sao Paulo liked the reproduction of stylistic standards, seeing them as a synonym of progress and social status and for the fact that they express a social identification with the lifestyle of European metropolis and further, with American standards and way of life. The other six designs represent a second stage of his professional path and are related directly to the foundations of the Modern Architecture. Ultimately, we search for the path taken in the survey of the work of the Architect, to understand how the transition period took place, pointing out some convergence and analogies, similarities and discrepancies, innovation and continuity in the ways the Architect conceived Architecture. (AU)