CARLOS EDUARDO COMAS

Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

DAVID LEATHERBARROW

University of Pennsylvania

Solving Problems, Making Art,Being Modern

No serious architect would admit to choosingbetween architecture as a form of service and as anart. Yet, few who practice or write today have

handled the complementarity between these two aseffortlessly and persuasively as Lúcio Costa in thetexts translated here, written eight decades ago in

explanation of the Brazilian Pavilion for the 1939New York World’s Fair, designed in collaborationwith Oscar Niemeyer and Paul Wiener. Costa saw

65 COMAS AND LEATHERBARROW Journal of Architectural Education,pp. 65–68 ª 2010 ACSA

counterparts in what would seem today to beincompatibles: Should I select and specify materialsthat are ‘‘environmentally friendly,’’ or stick withthose that will allow me formal experimentation?Should my projects contribute to the restoration ofthe public realm or to the advancement of a way ofworking I have developed for myself? Isarchitecture’s primary task the realization of socialjustice or artistic beauty? It is far from clear,however, how they can be seen as correspondingaspects of a single practice, how one’s sense ofresponsibility can fit together with one’s awarenessof possibilities. Costa’s texts merit thought because

they show how successful design negotiatesnecessity and freedom. More specifically, theyillustrate three instances of dialogue betweenconstraint and expression: dialogue between thephysical and cultural dimensions of the buildingsite, between the traditional and modern aspects ofa project, and between a work’s practical andesthetic performance. Let us consider each in turnto see how architectural design once was, and couldstill be, a way of solving problems and making art.

If it is true that the first step of designdevelopment is site description, the second andthird steps involve acts of acceptance and refusal,

saying yes to some and no to other aspects of theproject’s ‘‘given conditions.’’ Consider first instancesof resistance. Costa and Niemeyer’s building wasneighbored on its east side by the French Pavilion,one of the grandest in the Fair. It was ‘‘weighty,taller, and bigger’’ than the Brazilian Pavilion; butas Costa implied, it was also misconceived. Why?Because it ‘‘artificially simulated an architecturalwork of permanent character,’’ which a pavilionclearly is not. While Costa’s criticism is ethical innature, the architectural principle that governed hisjudgment was decorum. Following the best Beaux-Arts tradition, from Quatremère de Quincy to Julien

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Guadet, his point was that character should suitpurpose. Hence, Costa believed it necessary toestablish a sense of contrast with the neighboringconditions; conformity would have shown thePavilion to be something it was not. Its positiveincongruity with the site was expressed throughinformality, porosity, and lightness. But aspects ofthe ‘‘natural’’ environment required resistance too.The sun, Costa observed, punishes the building’slateral façade. Consequently, he made the west wallcompletely closed and the south front equippedwith ‘‘sun breakers,’’ in opposition to the heat andglare. Site interpretation also involved the inverse:acceptance of existing circumstances. The façade inshade was completely glazed to admit ambient lightinto the depth of the plan. Another aspect of thepre-existing conditions that was accepted—evenamplified—was the plot’s unusual geometry. Costaobserved that its gentle curve and ‘‘undulatingrhythm’’ provided the project with its basic motif,one that was repeated in its key elements. Dialoguewith the site, then, entailed both co-operation andcriticism, rather like good conversation, whichdepends on saying yes and no.

In the arts, historical change is never quite asthoroughgoing as its advocates sometimes claim.Renewal, rather than a wholesale rejection ofhistory, is clearly evident in Costa’s texts. He openlyaffirmed his association with the spirit of CongrèsInternationaux d’Architecture Moderne and his

acceptance of the lesson of Le Corbusier. Thus it isno surprise that he considered this design asemphatically contemporary. Nevertheless, his viewof modern architecture was rather nuanced; herejected both ‘‘pseudo-modern scenography,’’ andthe claim that the new architecture was defined bythe ‘‘conveniences of technical and functionalorder.’’ Instead, he linked the modern spirit to therecovery and re-articulation of permanentprinciples. On this basis alone—this sense ofhistorical continuity and correspondences—one canunderstand Costa’s invocation of traditional ordersand conventional styles as well as establishedmodes and accepted polarities: specifically, hisaccount of the Pavilion’s lightness as ‘‘Ionic,’’ andits ordered movement as ‘‘Baroque.’’ Like so manymodern architects, especially in the late 1930s,Costa saw past and present as partners in adialogue, two times that were correspondinglyauthoritative and jointly influential in the project,sharply distinct when articulated formally butequivalent with respect to their embodiment ofconcerns that persist. It is as if the past werenothing more than a recent present and the presentnothing more than a future past. Still, Costa’sinvocation of academic language and explicitconcern about character is rather unique amongmodern architects of his generation, or earlier. LeCorbusier, for example, often used the termcomposition, but never character, as

characterization implies the manipulation ofconventional values associated with a program, andconvention was rarely acknowledged as a basis formeaning in the interwar period, even if it wassometimes tacitly accepted.

Intuition is essential in the practice ofarchitecture as an art. We have seen that Costaaccounted for much of the project with transparentreasoning. But he also implied—and in other textsexplained—that while the basic configuration of aproject may be dictated by objective considerations(of technique, location, and program), these alonenever determine the final design. Any one of anumber of more specific forms could be used to‘‘solve’’ general requirements. For this reason,rational thinking must be complemented byintuitive or ‘‘subjective’’ decisions, for which noexplanation can be offered other than artisticjudgment. And because these assessments werenot conditioned by what was ‘‘given’’ Costareferred to them as ‘‘pure.’’ But a little more canbe said about this side of the issue, for‘‘judgments of the eye,’’ as they were called in themannerist period, or ‘‘adjustments to idealsymmetries’’ in Vitruvian theory, depended on both‘‘patient research,’’ for Le Corbusier, and a desirefor expression that Costa elsewhere called thearchitect’s ‘‘sacred obsession’’: bringing intovisibility a world that is coherent unto itself, aswell as timely, fitting, and beautiful.

Memoir of the Project by Lúcio Costa and OscarNiemeyerpublished in Arquitetura e Urbanismo,

Rio de Janeiro, May-June 1939.

An exhibition pavilion should present the characteristics ofa temporary building instead of artificially simulating anarchitectural work of permanent character.

In an industrial, culturally developed land, such asthe United States, at a Fair attended by countries that

are richer and more experienced than ours, it wouldnot be reasonable to imagine attracting attentionthrough pomp, monumentality, or technique. We soughtto be interesting in another way: by making a simple,rather informal, attractive, and welcoming pavilion, onethat imposed itself neither for its proportions, as thesite is not big, nor for lavishness, as the country is stillpoor, but for its qualities of harmony and balance, andas an expression, as pure as possible, of contemporaryart.

On the other hand, in front of the weighty, tallerand much bigger mass of the French Pavilion, ourneighbor, it was mandatory to adopt a different parti,light and porous, to contrast with instead of beingabsorbed by what was nearby. Hence, too, the setbackof the main body of the building, taking advantage ofthe site’s gracious curve. From this setback, the internalgarden followed, and from the garden the decision toleave a great part of the ground floor open or justglazed, to attract the curiosity of the passersby. As the

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sun punishes the lateral façade, it was closed, while theshadowed side, that is, the garden front, was openedcompletely.

The undulating rhythm of the site, which the mainbody of the building accentuates, is repeated by themarquee, the ramp, the screens that protect the ground

floor, the mezzanine, the auditorium, etc., thusimparting a distinctive and extremely agreeable aspectto the whole.

Answer to the request by CommissaryGeneral Armando Vidal to make explicitthe spirit that animates the projectpublished in Album do Pavilhão do Brasil naFeira Mundial de Nova York de 1939,

New York: H.K. Publishing, 1939.

The answer is simple: it is the spirit of CIAM, because bothNiemeyer and myself are part of CIAM’s Brazilian group,and CIAM brings together architects from major countrieswho have a truly modern spirit; that is those who havefound a fundamental discord between present buildingprocesses and the historical styles and seek to re-adjustthose processes not to the dead forms of those styles butto the permanent principles of good architecture, creatingthus true works of art, as in the past.

We respect the lesson of Le Corbusier. We do notwant to subordinate the modern spirit exclusively to theconveniences of technical and functional order, nor do wewant to engage in making ‘‘pseudo-modern’’ scenographyof the kind so much in vogue in the United States. Whatwe want is the rigorous application of modern techniques

and the precise satisfaction of the requirements of theprogram and spaces; but all of this guided and controlled,in both the whole building and its details, by the constantdesire to produce a work of plastic art in the purest senseof expression. Painting and sculpture come naturally, eachin its place in architecture thus understood, not as simpleornaments or decorative elements but with an autonomousartistic value, although integrated into the composition.

In the case of this Pavilion, we had to consider initiallythe pre-existence of the neighboring building. Hence, thesetback from the site’s extreme boundary and the parti weadopted, light and open, somewhat lacy, to stand out bycontrast, instead of being dominated by the FrenchPavilion’s compact, weighty, taller, and much bigger mass.

The whole design sought to take advantage of thesite’s pleasant curve. It is the basic motif that has beenrepeated with different degrees of accent in themarquee, auditorium, ramp, screens of the ground floor,etc., lending grace and lightness to the whole, andmaking it thus correspond, in academic language, to theIonic order and not to the Doric, contrary to whathappens most often in contemporary architecture. This

break down of rigidity, this ordered movement that runsthrough the whole composition from one extremity toanother even has something of the Baroque—in thegood sense of the word—and this is very important tous, for it represents in some way a link with thetraditional spirit of Portuguese-Brazilian architecture.

Nor should we forget finally that an exhibitionpavilion should present all the features that are proper to atemporary building and should never artificially simulate aconstruction with a permanent character.

Lúcio Costa (1902–1998) graduated from the EscolaNacional de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro and became thefounding father of the first school of Brazilian modernarchitecture. A remarkable writer and designer, his worksinclude texts, such as ‘‘Razões da nova arquitetura’’(1934) and projects, such as the ‘‘Doric’’ Ministry ofEducation headquarters (leading a team that includedOscar Niemeyer and Affonso Eduardo Reidy), the GuinlePark apartments, and the Jockey Club Brasileiro buildingin Rio, as well as the Nova Friburgo Park Hotel and thePilot Plan of Brasilia.

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