art

Design as Resolution

Lina Bo Bardi

HOW CAN ARCHITECTURE CREATE A MORE INCLUSIVE AND CONNECTED WORLD? BO BARDI'S STRUCTURES OFFER LESSONS ABOUT HOW TO REBUILD AND REPURPOSE.

In 1951, Lina Bo Bardi (1914-1992) built the Casa de Vidro, or Glass House, in the hills of what is now São Paulo’s wealthy Morumbi neighbourhood. Perched in the remnants of the Atlantic Forest, its long glass walls are not only surrounded by greenery, but actually wrapped around an interior courtyard of trees that Bo Bardi planted. Nature rises through the heart of the house, growing upwards through the centre of the structure, embracing pillars and staircases.

In Brazil today, deforestation of the Amazon has been legitimised by President Jair Bolsonaro. On a wider scale, the decimation of natural habitats and the destruction of biodiversity is, as researchers believe, creating conditions for new viruses to pass onto humans. At a time when the future of cities is uncertain – when doors are locked to the outside world – the legacy of Lina Bo Bardi (Née Achillina Bo), raises important questions about how architecture needs to change. Against a backdrop of the climate crisis and a global pandemic, how can we plan to live with the organic world in a more inclusive way? How should we live with each other?

A touring retrospective celebrating Bo Bardi’s career, titled Habitat, was planned before the Coronavirus outbreak, due to open at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, on 13 June. “The idea for her was not to provide solutions but to encourage people to ask questions and to see difficult situations,” says Julieta González, curator of the show. “I think that we could all benefit from such an approach in the face of the crisis that we are living through today.”

Bo Bardi’s legacy goes beyond design, spanning cultural theory, museology, pedagogy, anthropology and theatre.

However, the many strands of her practice are united by the fundamentals of community, survival and shelter. González notes: “Lina was an advocate of sustainability – of paying attention to local resources, both material and human. Her problem-solving approach empowered individuals and provided the tools for dealing with material hardship by making do with whatever means were available.”

This way of thinking was shaped by Bo Bardi’s direct experiences with war. In 1939, she left the Rome College of Architecture and moved straight to Milan. There, she worked as an architect, illustrator and editor at a time when, in her words, “nothing was built, only destroyed.” In 1943, the offices she shared with designer Carlo Pagani were blown to bits by an aerial bombardment. She would continue to see many more ruins in the years to come, not least in 1945, when she toured the south of Italy with Pagani and the photographer Federico Patellani, whilst documenting the devastation that they encountered along the way.

What can be built from ruin? How do we take devastation and decay and turn it into something meaningful, hopeful and helpful? Bo Bardi took these important questions to Brazil in 1946, a matter of months after she married the critic and curator Pietro Maria Bardi. She soon moved to São Paulo when her husband was invited to establish a museum of art in the city. In Brazil, Bo Bardi found a new starting point for architecture – one born from the memory of shelled-out buildings and makeshift refuges that she had witnessed in Europe. She reflected on structures in which the lines between inside and outside were tested and broken.

24 Aesthetica