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Lina Bo Bardi shaping the world through a love of humanity

March 8, 2014

Designing around the needs of humanity

Designing around the needs of humanity

When we design around the the needs of humanity, when we put humanity at the core of our process – we have the potential to create extraordinary things. Not to design humanity an culture out of the process of creation but to weave it in. Sounds obvious does it  not? But the truth is we have created too many systems, organisations, buildings that do not acknowledge our humanity.

Lina Bo Bardi an Italian who moved to Brazil is an example of someone that believed profoundly in designing and creating buildings around the needs of human beings. Bo Bardi was born in Italy in 1914 arriving in Brazil in 1946, outside of her practice of architecture Bo Bardi was, a designer of furniture and stage sets, an editor and writer a curator of exhibitions and a political activist. Her work was very much in the modernist tradition, but she also employed the traditional cultures of her adopted country. Rowan Moore believes, one of her most beautiful creations is a wooden stair using techniques adapted from the making of ox carts.

SESC Pompéia Sao Paulo

SESC Pompéia Sao Paulo

But building was not enough, and should not be seen as the singular toil of the “artist” – people had to become the centre of the project. A case in point is the SESC Pompéia,

A social and cultural centre formed out of an old factory in São Paulo from 1977 to 1986. It houses football, swimming, theatre, dance and art. Old men play chess there, and children play with building blocks. You can eat in a popular canteen, and you can sunbathe on a boardwalk called “the beach”. Or you can simply sit and watch the passing scene, as you might in a park.

Here Bo Bardi’s first move was to argue that the old factory should not be demolished, as had been planned, on the grounds that it was already informally colonised by some of the uses – such as barbecues and puppet theatres – which the new centre was intended to serve. She then made it into a village assembly of spaces, enriched with things such as a shared hearth and a meandering, river-like length of water.

She later added three concrete towers, castle-like and consciously defiant of any right-wing government that might want to sweep the complex away. One is a water tower and the other two house the sports courts and bars and changing rooms. Bridges connect them, such that the journey from locker to court, usually a humdrum trip lined by lino and lit by fluorescent lights, is an event of urban drama, with the city spread out around you.

When SESC was being built, Bo Bardi worked on site, absorbing and throwing out ideas, and listening to builders and users. After it was complete, she continued to contribute, with the invention and design of exhibitions, on insects and folk art. The moment of architectural perfection, when a building is officially completed, was of little interest to her.

Here Bo Bardi’s first move was to argue that the old factory should not be demolished, as had been planned, on the grounds that it was already informally colonised by some of the uses – such as barbecues and puppet theatres – which the new centre was intended to serve. She then made it into a village assembly of spaces, enriched with things such as a shared hearth and a meandering, river-like length of water.

She later added three concrete towers, castle-like and consciously defiant of any right-wing government that might want to sweep the complex away. One is a water tower and the other two house the sports courts and bars and changing rooms. Bridges connect them, such that the journey from locker to court, usually a humdrum trip lined by lino and lit by fluorescent lights, is an event of urban drama, with the city spread out around you.

When SESC was being built, Bo Bardi worked on site, absorbing and throwing out ideas, and listening to builders and users. After it was complete, she continued to contribute, with the invention and design of exhibitions, on insects and folk art. The moment of architectural perfection, when a building is officially completed, was of little interest to her.

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