Lina Bo Bardi: Together, Graham Foundation, through July 25, 2015.
The architect Lina Bo Bardi, born Achillina Bo in Rome in 1914, made Brazil home in 1946. She went there with her husband Pietro Maria Bardi initially to create the Museu de Arte de São Paulo. In 1969, she designed the concrete and glass museum, that lives on as a landmark of Brazilian modern architecture.
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This exhibition, curated by Noemì Blager, celebrates Bo Bardi as humanist and architect, and is responsible for my biggest case of house lust to date. In 1951, Bardi designed Casa de Vidro (Glass House) in a district in São Paulo called Morumbi. It’s a modernist masterpiece, an elevated pavilion of glass and concrete that floats atop hill lush with vegetation.
The installation design by the London-based design firm Assemble Studio is the other reason to come. Thick felt curtains reshape the rooms on the second floor into intimate curvy spaces with exhibition cases made of metal and concrete—two of Bo Bardi’s favorite materials. Film installations by Tapio Snellman document the activity and the space of the SESC Pompéia, a gym and cultural center designed by Bo Bardi in 1982.
It’s the ground floor that I return to, where there are photographs in light boxes by Iana Marinescu of the Glass House. Visitors are encouraged to sit in Bo Bardi’s bowl chairs originally designed in 1951. Arper, the Italian furniture design company reissued the chair a few years ago and is donating money raised from the sale of the limited edition of chairs to support the Instituto Lina Bo e P.M. Bardi. The organization and archive is housed in Casa de Vidrio, where Bo Bardi lived until her death in 1992. Until I can travel there, I will content myself with Zeuler Lima’s comprehensive book published last year by Yale University Press.
Photo: Courtesy of Assemble Studio










