Architecture Exhibitions in Brazil, a brief history

Abstract

The history of architectural exhibitions in Brazil is permeated by erratic movements, generally divergent initiatives, most of them endowed with initial originality and vigor, but which rapidly decline. Few survive, and when this happens, they are characterized by non-linearity, both with regard to the irregular periodicity of exposures and the oscillation of the results obtained. An unstable picture, you see, to some extent in tune with what also happens with art exhibitions, even though these are much more consolidated. The following text gives a concise account of the recent history of these exhibitions, beginning with a description of the failed project of an architecture curator at the “Museu de Arte de São Paulo” (São Paulo Art Museum) in the early 1990s. He goes on to mention an exceptional initiative that took place in Rio de Janeiro in the second half of the same decade, until arriving at the Tomie Ohtake Institute and Museu da Casa Brasileira, both São Paulo institutions responsible for two consistent programs, although sensitive to the circumstances of a fragile system. There is also an edition of the São Paulo Architecture Biennial, whose success contrasts and reinforces a history marked by outrages.