Before & After: How a Couple Brought Their São Paulo Home’s Garden Into the Living Room
Architect Ana Sawaia revives a 1956 home by João Batista Vilanova Artigas by weaving in varying degrees of transparency, bright-yellow accents, and subtle references to his past work.
For Brazilian architect Ana Sawaia, the work of modernist architect João Batista Vilanova Artigas needs no introduction. Artigas was a founding figure of the São Paulo–based Paulista School, active from the 1950s to the 1970s, which favored using raw, exposed concrete to construct massive forms. The school’s work has been referred to as brutalist (although Artigas never liked the label)—and it contrasts with the smooth, curving style of the Carioca School in Rio de Janeiro. (For the latter, think Oscar Niemeyer.)