The Rise of Popular Modernist Architecture in Brazil

Name: The Rise of Popular Modernist Architecture in Brazil
Author: Fernando Luiz Lara
ISBN: 9780813081687

by Fernando Luiz Lara

Published by: University Press of Florida

This book investigates how and why modernist architecture became widely popular in midcentury Brazil, tracking how the style spread among middle-class people and the economic, cultural, and political conditions that made it possible.

166 Pages6.00 × 9.0049 b/w illus., notes, bibliography, index

Paperback
9780813081687
Published: June 30, 2026

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Hardcover
9780813032894
Published: September 12, 2008

$69.95

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EPUB
9780813075488
Published: June 30, 2026

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Description
Authors
Praise
Table of Contents

An investigation of the widespread popularity of modernist architecture in midcentury Brazil

During the mid-twentieth century, Brazil as a country seemed to be fascinated with modernism. Middle-class people would read about it in popular newspapers and journals, then go about designing their own homes in the modernist style, using distinctive layouts and façades. In other words, modernist architecture was the popular architecture of Brazil.

Fernando Luiz Lara investigates how and why modern architecture became so popular in his native country, tracking the path of the dissemination as well as the economic, cultural, and political conditions that made it possible. He views it as a direct extension of the optimism and relative stability that spread throughout the country beginning in the 1950s.

This original and significant contribution to the field counters the traditional historiography of modernist architecture, and has broad applicability in examining the importance of the style throughout Latin America.

Fernando Luiz Lara is professor of architecture at the Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania.

"Proves that contrary to post-modern beliefs and rhetoric and to what happened in the U.S. and in Europe, in the case of Brazil modern architecture was popular and inspired the production of buildings by non-architects, helping to mold a middle-class culture and a new system of values."—Vicente del Rio, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

“Makes a contribution to the field. It will surely have an impact on architectural studies in Brazil, as well as on the way in which Brazilian modernism is viewed worldwide. It continues important debates about architectural identity and expands debate about tradition, self-construction and the popularization of modern architecture.”—The Americas
“Throw[s] light on the exceptional status of architectural modernism in Brazil.”—Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians
“Fills an important gap in our understanding of the production of architecture by the population at large and, in this case, of the specific history of that production in Brazil. . . . Details the role of modern and paradigmatic architecture in that popular production; showing how architecture is seen, understood, and reproduced by the population at large.”—H-Net

List of Illustrations

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. The Time and Place of Architecture’s Popular Modernism

2. Documenting Popular Modernism

3. Reasons for Popular Modernism in Brazil

4. Problematizing Popular Modernism

5. Lessons from Popular Modernism

Notes

Bibliography

Index