Version para el português del texto "One enters through one door and leaves then through another" de annette spiro

Abstract

In 2002, swiss architect Annette Spiro published (Niggli Editors) a very complete book on the work of Paulo Mendes, which included 37 of his published projects, her own extensive presentation of his work, an interview with him and a kind preface written by (also swiss) architect Luigi Snozzi. Annette Spiro's text is surprising on account of her new approach to Mendes' work and of her deep understanding of brazilian culture, which adds to her perspective and takes it way beyond. She chose to start her analysis with the constituting components of architectural work - the land, coverage, cantilevers, pillars - and the under laying reasoning is led by the arrangement of these elements in space. Delving into the texts of British author Colin Rowe, she analyses the projects through the optics of classical tradition and its space arrangement. Furthermore, the author does not limit herself to the formal or material aspects of buildings - concrete surfaces, structural exactness, an appreciation of technique - which would only lead to an immediate and probably shallow connection to the above mentioned styles, whether brutalism, minimalist or abstractionist. Rather, she explores the relationship among the fundamental components of architectural work: horizontal and vertical planes, relationship with the land, opposition between void and filled spaces, and light as space constituting element.