— Died March 20, 1992 in São Paulo

São Paulo

São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...

) was a Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

ian modernist architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

 born in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

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After graduating from the Rome School of Architecture in 1939 at the age of 25, she began her career in the office of Giò Ponti

Giò Ponti

Gio Ponti was one of the most important Italian architects, industrial designers, furniture designers, artists, and publishers of the twentieth century.-Early life:...

 in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

 where she was very successful, despite the war and gained a vast amount of knowledge about furniture, industrial design, and architecture through her years of experience. She put this experience to use when she opened her own office, which she didn’t receive many commissions before her office was destroyed by an aerial bombing in 1943 The event prompted her deeper involvement in the Italian Communist Party

Italian Communist Party

The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party . Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played...

. She spent the years following the war documenting destruction across Italy, participating in the National Congress for Reconstruction. She also founded a weekly magazine, A Cultura della Vita, with Bruno Zevi

Bruno Zevi

Bruno Zevi was an Italian architect, historian, professor, curator, author and editor. Zevi was a vocal critic of 'classicising' modern architecture and postmodernism.-University years:...

. . She also became a deputy director of Domus in 1946 and contributed articles and illustrations.

Career in Brazil

In 1946 Bo Bardi moved with her husband to Brazil, a country which had a profound effect on her creative thinking. She became a naturalized citizen in 1951, the same year she completed her first built work, her own "Glass House" in the new neighborhood of Morumbi

Morumbi

Morumbi is a district of the city of São Paulo belonging to the subprefecture of Butantã, in the southwestern part of the city. A common folk etymology attributes its name to the mixed Portuguese and Tupi phrase morro obi, which would mean "green hill", but this is disputed.Morumbi is between 9...

. Here, the Italian rationalism shaped this first work, but immersed in Brazilian culture her creative thinking began to become more expressive

Expressionism

Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...

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"The Glass House"

Lina designed the “Glass House” for her and her husband in what was then the remnants of the Mata Atlantica, the original rain forest surrounding São Paulo. The area is now the wealthy suburb of Morumbi but a more domesticated version of the rain forest has since re-established itself around the house, concealing it from view.
The main part of the house is horizontal between thin reinforced concrete slabs with slender circular columns. The columns are pilotis, which allows the landscape to flow under the building. Inside, the main living area is almost completely open, except for a courtyard that allows the trees in the garden below to grow up into the heart of the house. In the house, there are zones allocated to different functions- a dining room, a library, and a sitting area around the freestanding fireplace- but all are unified by the forest views through the glass. In theory, the glass panels slide open horizontally, but there is no balcony to encourage people to go outside.
The living area is only half of the house. The other half sits on solid ground at the top of the hill, on the north side of the living room. A row of bedrooms face a narrow courtyard, on the other side of which is the blank wall of the staff wing. Only the kitchen crosses the divide- a territory shared by servants and mistress, and equipped with a variety of well-designed labor-saving devices.

The São Paulo Museum of Art

Lina became famous for the ample spaces she sought to construct. The São Paulo Museum of Art, of which her husband Pietro Maria Bardi was curator, was built to her basic design. And when she died she left designs for a new São Paulo City Hall and a Cultural Centre for Vera Cruz

Vera Cruz, São Paulo

Vera Cruz is a municipality in the state of São Paulo in Brazil. The population in 2004 was 11,107 and the area is 248.56 km². The elevation is 628 m....

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