Artistic Migration: Reframing Post-War Italian Art, Architecture and Design in Brazil

Artistic Migration: Reframing Post-War Italian Art, Architecture, and Design in Brazil investigates a selection of works by Italian artists and architects, and an art critic and dealer, who immigrated to Brazil after World War II, and were involved in the first activities and opportunities created by the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP).

Although foreigners, these experts, namely Bramante Buffoni, Roberto Sambonet, Lina Bo Bardi, Giancarlo Palanti, and Pietro Maria Bardi, were engaged in the construction of paths for Brazilian art, architecture, and design, in production marked by the intertwining of artistic disciplines. By examining the works produced between 1946 and 1991, and focusing on the relationship between art and architecture, with previously unexplored cases, the text investigates how these actors engaged in the dilemmas of Brazilian culture and became part of its invention. The intention is to understand the nature and meaning of this recognizable experience, the continuities of and ruptures from modern architectural, art and design ideals, pre-war experience, and immigration, illuminating a complex framework of relationships with local ideas.

The approach and the extensive archival research in Italy and Brazil adopted for the book sheds new light on critically rethinking and reframing Italian and Brazilian cultural events, and will be of interest to architects, researchers, teachers, and students interested in the history of architecture, museums, design, and art.

Aline Coelho Sanches is Professor of the Theory and History of Architecture at the University of Sao Paulo, Institute of Architecture and Urbanism (IAU-USP), Brazil. She holds a PhD with honors in Architectural Composition from Milan Polytechnic, and BA and master’s degree in architecture and urban planning from Sao Paulo University. She has, for several years studied the role played by Italian architects who immigrated to Brazil, publishing in international collective volumes and journals. She coordinated the axis of documentary study of the history of the Glass House, built by Lina Bo Bardi and Pietro Maria Bardi, on the team in charge of its Conservation Management Plan, funded by The Getty Foundation’s Keeping It Modern Program. For one of the results of this work, she received an award from the National Association for Research and Graduate Studies in Architecture and Urbanism, in 2020. She has worked as an architect, with published projects.