ARQUITECTURA PAULISTA. DPA 30, March 2014. Departament de Projectes Arquitectònics,
Barcelona 2013. ISSN 1577-0265

EDITORIAL

In the late 50s and after a short period of professional activity, an important group of architects led by João Vilanova Artigas (Curitiba, 1915-1985), including figures like Rino Levi (São Paulo, 1901 to 1965), Lina Bo Bardi (Rome, 1914-1992) and Paulo Mendes da Rocha (Vitoria, 1928), laid the foundation for an architecture that nowadays we recognize under the term " Paulista School".
The specific nature of the imposing american geography, in conjunction with the social and political situation that is going through in Brazil at that time, lead to the articulation of a new dialogue between the architecture space and territory, despite recognizing his intimate belonging to the place, does not renounce the modern language of their referents. Paulista architecture produced a work of great unity and formal expressivity, characterized by its elemental geometry and abstraction.
The arrangement of these strong titrations on topographical landscape requires prior manipulation of the place. It is in these spaces, both open and protected, where the human being is placed in relation to the surrounding landscape. However, the geometric simplicity of the outer spatial volume contrast to the complexity of their empty interior. This inherent dichotomy between inside and outside character does not prevent the work, as a whole, was a kind of threshold where the boundary between inside and outside is blurred.
The desire to relate these robust titrations with the vast dimensions of the landscape requires bold structural solutions develop. The São Paulo architecture finds in this strong technical component of most engineering nature, a sign of identity that allows you to distinguish Brazilian architecture in general and carioca architecture in particular, heir to the neoclassical principles of the French school of Fine Arts.
Sometimes through the analysis of specific works, others through more general reflections, the articles in this issue of the magazine 30 DPA address those aspects that define the spatial structure of the São Paulo architecture, expressly fleeing topics that, recurrently, are treated in similar thematic publications .

DPA thanks to Josep Ferrando the contributions made to focus this monograph, derived from his doctoral research that he is doing around this theme.