MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

Paulo Mendes da Rocha spent his childhood between the city of Vitória, the harbour capital of Espírito Santo where he was born in October 1928 at his maternal grandparents’ house, and Paquetá Island, in the middle of Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro, the national capital, where the Mendes da Rocha family lived.

The architect’s family moved to the city of  São Paulo in 1940, where his father Paulo Menezes Mendes da Rocha was appointed Chair of the Naval and Harbour Resources of the Polytechnic School of the Universidade de São Paulo, which he directed from 1943 to 1947.

Still in São Paulo, Paulo Mendes da Rocha graduated from the Mackenzie Architecture School in 1954 and was able to build a solid carrier as a designer of houses, schools, apartment buildings, museums, furniture, theatre sets and several urban projects.

After graduation, he won a national project competition in 1957 for the construction of a gymnasium, the Clube Atlético Paulistano. This work brought him public recognition and also won the Grande Prêmio Presidência da República at the 6th Bienal of São Paulo in 1961.

In 1968, the architect won the national project competition for the Brazilian pavilion at Osaka Expo 70 and traveled to that city to follow the construction development in 1969.

Amongst several international honours, he has been awarded the Honorary Fellowship from the Conselho Internacional dos Arquitetos de Língua Portuguesa, The Mies Van der Rohe Foundation Prize for his project for São Paulo’s Pinacoteca. Furthermore, he was selected in 2000 to represent Brazil at the 7th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. He received the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2006.

In Brazil, the architect was twice honoured with the Ordem do Mérito Cultural, in 2004 and 2013. He also received the Troféu APCA (Associação Paulista de Críticos de Arte) twice, in 2012 and 2015.

Whilst working as an architect, Mendes da Rocha joined the world of academia thanks to his good friend, Vilanova Artigas, one of Brazil’s most remarkable architects. Both architects enhanced the School of Architecture of the Universidade de São Paulo with their social and humanistic views, which have had a major influence on many generations of architects and artists to come.

After receiving the title of Doctor from the Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo da Universidade de São Paulo in 1998, his contribution to higher education is attested by the several invitations to international universities:
 

 
Mendes da Rocha’s complete work was widely published in several Brazilian and international magazines as well as many books such as: Mendes da Rocha, Introducciones / Introductions, Josep Ma. Montaner, Editorial Gustavo Gili, Barcelona, 1996; Paulo Mendes da Rocha, Cosak & Naify, 2000 and 2007; Paulo Mendes da Rocha Bauten und Projekte, Annette Spiro, Verlag Niggli AG, Sulgen I Zürich, 2002; Paulo Mendes da Rocha, Helio Piñon, Romano Guerra Editora, 1ª edição 2002; Paulo Mendes da Rocha Estrutura: o êxito da forma, Denise Chini Solot; Paulo Mendes da Rocha – Fifty Years, Rizzoli, 2007; Paulo Mendes da Rocha – Tutte le Opere, Daniele Pisani, con un saggio di Francesco Dal Co, Mondadori Electa S.p.A., Milano, 2013.
 
Besides his architectural and urban projects, he designed some interesting furniture: one example is the chair “Paulistano”, published in the magazine New Furniture. Neue Möbel. Meubles Nouveaux, Verlag Gerd Hatje, Stuttgart, 1958. The chair is now industrially produced by French company OBJEKTO.

He passed away in Sao Pualo, May 23th, 2021.

METRO. Founded in 2000 in São Paulo, METRO works in different scales, from temporary installations to urban interventions. The work allies a modernist architectural tradition, resulting from the frequent collaboration with the architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha [Pritzker Prize 2006], to a practice which complies with contemporary issues. On the one hand, we look after an architecture in which material organization serves the public use of the built spaces; on the other, we look upon the importance of formal speculation and research on materials, besides an approach that tries to recognize and bring solutions to the necessities and desires of the wide network of agents involved in the production of space.
 

MARTIN CORULLON. Trained as an Architect at The Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at The University of São Paulo [FAUUSP]. Holds a Masters degree from the same institution. Founded METRO ARQUITETOS ASSOCIADOS in 2000. Since 1994 has been a close collaborator of Paulo Mendes da Rocha. During 2008 and 2009 he worked at Foster+Partners in London.

GUSTAVO CEDRONI. Founder. Qualified as an Architect at FAAP in 2000. Worked with Pedro Paulo de Melo Saraiva in 1999, and with Eduardo Colonelli in 2000. Became a collaborator at METRO ARQUITETOS ASSOCIADOS, and partner in 2007. Participated in the Architecture Biennale of Venice with a video installation in 2006 and taught at the European Institute of Design in São Paulo during 2010. In 2012, he worked with Rem Koolhaas's OMA in NY.

HELENA CAVALHEIRO Graduated as Architect and Urbanist by the Federal University of Rio Grande Do Sul at Porto Alegre in 2008, joining METRO in 2012; becoming an associate in 2016. Previous experiences include the design and delivery of the architectural and exhibition project for Mercosul’s 8th Biennial of Visual Arts in 2011.

MARINA IOSHII Trained as an Architect at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of São Paulo, working in the office of METRO since 2010. Previously worked for The Curitiba Institute of Urban Planning & Research [IPPUC] and at Arquispace Projetos & Obras, in Curitiba.