RIO DE JANEIRO: VISIT TO SITIO ROBERTO BURLE MARX

welcoming pavilion


orchids greenhouse



views of the gardens


house interiors


living room


vitrines


tablecloth


Burle Marx's bed



mosaic pavilion


party pavilion






http://sitioburlemarx.blogspot.com/

REVISITING OSCAR NIEMEYER'S CASA CANOAS, RIO DE JANEIRO

the thing about revisiting places you had visited in the past, is that it's not only about how the place has changed (or not), or about how you have changed, but more about how your interests and perceptions have changed during that time...
go to 2001, pre-digital camera visit...

CARLA ZACCAGNINI'S WALL AT GENTIL CARIOCA, RIO DE JANEIRO

Parede Gentil

A Parede Gentil é um projeto no qual a fachada lateral da galeria é ocupada a cada quatro meses com uma nova intervenção, apoiada por um colecionador. Desse modo, A GENTIL CARIOCA busca incentivar o colecionismo e criar uma relação com a rua e a comunidade entorno da galeria. A partir do dia 12 de setembro, A GENTIL CARIOCA apresentará a 11° intervenção da artista paulista Carla Zaccagnini, que ficara exposta do dia 12/09/2009 a 23/01/2010 com o gentil apoio dos colecionadores Marta e Marcio Lobão.

O trabalho se chama "se essa rua fosse minha" e consiste na sugestão da possibilidade de realizar pequenas transformações pontuais na realidade, fazendo aparecer, por um gesto simples e reversível, sentidos que já estão contidos nas placas de ruas, mas se encontram ocultos entre as demais letras dos nomes. Digamos, por exemplo, que numa placa em que se lê Rua Luiz de Camões passaria a ler-se R a z ões

O mecanismo é muito simples, a parede estará pintada de azul, no mesmo tom das placas, e terá uma lista de ruas das imediações da gentil pintadas em branco em ordem alfabética, ressaltando algumas das letras de modo a formar uma frase que explica o jogo proposto. Ao mesmo tempo, serão distribuídas folhas de vinil do mesmo azul com retângulos recortados em duas medidas diferentes. nada mais.

A idéia é criar a possibilidade de construção de uma mensagem desconexa que se espalha organicamente pela cidade, a possibilidade de um jogo que se dissemina ao infinito, porque uma vez que você começa a pensar nas alterações imagináveis, nessas palavras ocultas, passa a olhar todos os nomes de ruas e pensar nos outros sentidos que elas escondem, projetando nos nomes de personagens e datas históricas outros conteúdos.

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Gentil Wall

The Gentil Wall is a project in which the side facade of the gallery is occupied every four months with a new intervention, which is supported by a collector. Thus, A Gentil Carioca seeks to encourage new ways of collecting and of creating a relationship with the street and the community around the gallery. From 12/09/2009 to 23/01/2010, A Gentil Carioca presents the 11th intervention by Sao Paulo artist Carla Zaccagnini, with the kind support of collectors Marta and Marcio Lobão.

Zaccagnini's work is called 'If this was my street' and suggests the possibility of making small changes in the specific reality through a simple gesture, by making visible words already contained in the street signs, but that are hidden among the letters of the street names. For example, that a plaque that reads Rua Luiz de Camões would read R a z ões.

The mechanism is very simple, the wall is painted blue, in the same tone that the street signs, and will have a list of streets in the vicinity painted in white in alphabetical order, highlighting some of the letters to form a sentence explaining the game proposed.

The idea is to create the possibility of building a rambling message that spreads organically in the city, and the possibility of a game that spreads to infinity, because once you start thinking about the imaginable changes, you look at all street signs with their names coming from historical figures and dates and you think of all the other words that they hide, in this way projecting on to them, another content.

http://www.agentilcarioca.com.br

ERNESTO NETO'S 'COCO MANIFESTO'

Ernesto Neto's video Manifesto in defense of traditional coconut drinking and selling and against packaged coconut-water consumption.

RIO DE JANEIRO: VISIT TO PEDREGULHO SOCIAL EXPERIMENT

Mr. Hamilton, president of the Pedregulho housing association


original plan for Pedregulho 1946



Le Corbusier's urban plans for Rio de Janeiro, 1929



The Prefeito Mendes de Moraes Residential Complex, known as Pedregulho, was designed by the architect Affonso Eduardo Reidy (1909-1964) was built from 1947 and finished in 1952, to house government employees of the then capital of Brazil. Located in the Rio de Janeiro suburb of São Cristóvão, the 260-meter-long serpentine building has 272 housing units of different sizes, 68 per floor. Two additional apartment buildings, both 80 meters long are below, other of the planned buildings were never built. The serpentine form was probably inspired by Le Corbusier's 1929 unbuilt plan for Rio de Janeiro. The Pedregulho development covers an area of 50,000 m2, comprising the apartment blocks, an elementary school, a gymnasium, a swimming pool with dressing rooms, a health center (now abandoned), playgrounds, and a day care center.

According to Cabinet magazine "Pedregulho was also to represent to the outside world the direction of current Brazilian social reform. Therefore, families who were to represent this new society had to be checked for medical diseases before moving in. A criterion for these hand-picked tenants was their willingness to uphold the pure, white aesthetic of the architecture. Additionally, they had to agree to frequent inspections by the authorities. Employees from the Popular Housing Department had the power to periodically access the apartments and request that tenants abide by the regulations. The inhabitants had to remain clean. Of special importance was a communal laundry room with washing machines. To encourage its use, each tenant was given 2 kg of detergent annually as a gift from the city. The laundry room and representative tenants were part of the regular tour given to VIPs... Tenants could be evicted for lying to the authorities and social assistants regularly verified information provided by the tenants."

Today in a state of disrepair and with a bad reputation as a 'hot' spot within the city, the tenants have organized themselves to make some repairs in the building.

There is also an artist residency promoting artist's projects within the building
http://pedregulhoresidenciaartistica.wordpress.com/