Escritório Técnico Ramos de Azevedo, Severo & Villares: longevity, plurality and modernity (1886-1980)

Abstract

This article discusses the Ramos de Azevedo Office: Architecture and City exhibition that presents the office run by Ramos de Azevedo and his partners through some of their designs for the state government and private clients. These designs display rare beauty and contain several narratives, shed light on principals, partners and auxiliaries, and disclose a portion of the supply chain of those works that assured the credibility of their protagonist in the collective mind. Whether in ink, watercolor or blueprint, and with stamps bearing their initials, they offer us a glimpse of the architects, engineers and draftsmen in an office that, at peak activity, employed 500 people. Projects drilled down up to furnishings and the description of materials tell us more about the everyday practice at the office, and invite us to walk around the city and imagine it as a work in progress. And indeed it was: the sprawling, verticalizing and skyscraping city of São Paulo was being modernized at full tilt. One can split the office’s history into 3 periods: from 1886 to Ramos’ death; from 1928 to 1965, when Ricardo Severo and Arnaldo Villares took over; and from 1965 to 1980, when Roberto Pereira de Almeida and Affonso Iervolino took over. Public works alternated with buildings for private clients, all deserving preservation, as well as the designs that represent them.