Residential Masterpieces 23: Paulo Mendes Da Rocha

Begun in São Paulo in 1964 by Paulo Mendes da Rocha when he was just 36 years old, the Brazilian architect’s own residence was highly influential in his home country but little published due to the political climate of the time. An entire “heroic” phase of Brazilian architecture, with significant works by Oscar Niemeyer, Lina Bo Bardi, and others, was impacted by the Brazil’s increasing cultural isolation. Mendes da Rocha’s work was not recognised internationally until the 1990s, which led to a “rediscovery” of this house as a kind of manifesto. Its brutalist reinforced concrete surfaces and structural simplicity resonate with history in this series of photographs by Yukio Futagawa.