The reverse of modern architecture: domesticity and ways of life in the Brazilian housemarket, 1930-1960

Abstract

Much has been said about the success, acceptance and dissemination of Brazilian modern architecture, the one which was synthesized in Rio de Janeiro with the Ministry of Education and Public Health - MESP (1936-1945) and would have achieved hegemony and the highest prestige point with the construction of Brasília (1956-1960). If the international recognition has found consistent explanations, as well as the interpretation of the definitions and specific features of our modern architecture, the same can not be said with respect to the success achieved by it internally, especially in the context of private buildings. This research aims to address the challenge of understanding how and why in such a short time, modern architecture was consolidated in the country, not only producing works of exception, but a wide range of high quality buildings that marked the metropolitanization of the Brazilian cities between 1930 and 1960 and was more diverse than the canonical language. Our research, however, will not focus on the discourse of architects, historians and critics, but the speeches of customers, consumers of this architecture, investigating the meanings and roles it assumed during the focused period. Only then, from the inside out, it seems possible to move forward on such a recurrent issue in our historiography, also to investigate the scope of its triumph. (AU)