Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha named as the recipient of the 2017 Royal Gold Medal for architecture "Living legend"

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). Given in recognition of a lifetime’s work, the Royal Gold Medal is approved personally by Her Majesty The Queen and is given to a person or group of people who have had a significant influence 'either directly or indirectly on the advancement of architecture'.

Awarded since 1848, past Royal Gold Medallists include Zaha Hadid (2016), Frank Gehry (2000), Norman Foster (1983), Frank Lloyd Wright (1941) and Sir George Gilbert Scott (1859); Oscar Niemeyer (1998) is the only other Brazilian architect to have received the honour.

Born in Vitória, Brazil in 1928, Paulo Mendes da Rocha has received international acclaim for his significant contribution to architecture. Mendes da Rocha’s numerous notable cultural buildings, built in his particular Brazilian Brutalist style with exposed concrete structures and rough finishes, are widely credited with transforming the city of São Paulo. In 1957 he completed his first celebrated building, the Athletic Club of São Paulo, followed by a large number of further public buildings in the city including Saint Peter Chapel (1987), the Brazilian Sculpture Museum MuBE (1988), Patriach Plaza (1992-2002), the Pinacoteca do Estado gallery (1993) and the FIESP Cultural Center (1997). Outside São Paulo, notable buildings include the Serra Dourada football stadium in Goiás (1973), Lady of the Conception Chapel in Recife (2006) and Cais das Artes arts centre in Vitória (2008).

Despite Mendes da Rocha’s international reputation, there have been just a few examples to experience his work outside his home country, with the significant exception of Brazil’s pavilion at Expo ’70 (Osaka, Japan) and Portugal’s National Coach Museum (Lisbon, 2015).

Speaking about the award, RIBA President and chair of the selection committee Jane Duncan said:

'Paulo Mendes da Rocha’s work is highly unusual in comparison to the majority of the world’s most celebrated architects. He is an architect with an incredible international reputation, yet almost all his masterpieces are built exclusively in his home country. Revolutionary and transformative, Mendes da Rocha’s work typifies the architecture of 1950s Brazil – raw, chunky and beautifully ‘brutal’ concrete.

'Paulo Mendes da Rocha is a world-class architect and a true living legend; I am delighted he will be presented with the Royal Gold Medal, one of the world’s most important honours for architecture.'

Paulo Mendes da Rocha said:

'After so many years of work, it is a great joy to receive this recognition from the Royal Institute of British Architects for the contribution my lifetime of work and experiments have given to the progress of architecture and society. I would like to send my warmest wishes to all those who share my passion, in particular British architects, and share this moment with all the architects and engineers that have collaborated on my projects.'

Paulo Mendes da Rocha has previously been honoured with the Mies van der Rohe Prize (2000), Pritzker Prize (2006), the Venice Biennale Golden Lion for lifetime achievement (2016) and the Praemium Imperiale International Arts Award (2016).

The Royal Gold Medal will be presented to Paulo Mendes da Rocha in early 2017.

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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:
 
2001 Professor ad Honorem of the Facultad de Arquitectura, Universidad de la República del Uruguay
2007 Doctor Honoris Causa, Universidade Presbeteriana Mackenzie, São Paulo
2009 Doctor Honoris Causa, Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Santa Fe, Argentina
2010 Professor Emeritus, Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo da Universidade de São Paulo, USP
2011 Doctor Honoris Causa, University of Architecture and Urbanism "Ion Mincu", Bucharest, Romania
2012 Doctor Honoris Causa for distinction in the arts, science, culture, human rights, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina
2015 Doctor Honoris Causa, University of Lisbon.
 
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.
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Published on: September 29, 2016
Cite: "Paulo Mendes da Rocha "Living legend". 2017 RIBA Royal Gold Medal for architecture" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/paulo-mendes-da-rocha-living-legend-2017-riba-royal-gold-medal-architecture> ISSN 1139-6415
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