Lina Bo Bardi: The Poetry of Concrete

Lina Bo Bardi (1914–1992) was born in Rome and immigrated to Brazil in 1946, where she settled in São Paulo with her husband, Pietro Maria Bardi (1900–1999). The high point of her recognition came in 2021, when she was posthumously awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Architecture Biennale for her life’s work. In the exhibition Lina Bo Bardi – The Poetry of Concrete, the Museum of Architectural Drawing presents a selection of 40 drawings that are being shown together for the first time in Europe. The works come from the collection of the Instituto Bardi, founded by Lina Bo and Pietro Maria Bardi. They served as sketches and designs for six realised projects for cultural institutions: Casa de Vidro, Solar do Unhão, MASP – Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Teatro Oficina, SESC Pompéia and Casa do Benin. The exhibition and the catalogue include photographs by the artist Veronika Kellndorfer, who has devoted decades to studying the work of Bo Bardi and modernism in architecture. In a poetic, playful and informal fashion, Bo Bardi presented her ideas in drawings that illustrated her view of the building as a total work of art. She often used innovative construction materials such as glass and concrete, which, notwithstanding their structural contrasts, form an impressive harmony in her work and established themselves as integral components of Brazilian modernism.