Another story of Casa do Morumbi: reflections on coloniality in architecture

Abstract

This work aims to investigate coloniality in Brazilian architecture based on the residence built in the Morumbi neighborhood in 1951 by the architect Lina Bo Bardi for herself and her husband. For this purpose, the idea is to reflect on the intersections between gender, race, class and space on two scales: outside and inside the domestic space. In the first, we intend to analyze the urban environment and the city based on the Jardim Morumbi advertisements from the 1950s as part of the construction of a visuality and imaginary of ideals of family, city and privileges. In the second, the aim is to explore work and domestic workers from the Casa dos Caseiros, an annex built in 1952 on the same land, articulating questions about domesticity and material culture. These two scales are inseparable in that they feed back on the same logic that obliterates certain spaces, materialities, bodies, subjects and narratives. As a methodological basis, the research is based on the perspective of Aníbal Quijano (2005), who understands the notion of coloniality as constitutive and, therefore, inseparable from modernity, to investigate its meanings within the field of architecture. This research aims to contribute to recent studies within the discipline that highlight the racial issue as central in the constitution of modern architecture, such as the collection of articles organized by Irene Cheng, Charles Davis and Mabel Wilson (2020).