“I think it was Galileo who said that one of the top three great experiences of humankind is our capacity to learn. I think that’s exactly right. One of the great pleasures that we have in life is our ability to learn.” Lorne Buchman, as quoted in Your Brain on Art
One of the ways that we learn best is by doing, by trial and most of the time error I think. The process of making I believe to be one of the best ways to learn. This chart below which I made “by hand” manually did exactly that. I decided to organize it by architect and by time – and in that I learned this building which was meant to provide a contrast to the other brutalist buildings on this tour was actually designed by the same architect as the one who designed perhaps the most iconic brutalist building of all, FIESP. Like wow- talk about how much can shift in a decade.
Notes from Gemini:
Originally constructed in 1958 as the Castor Delgado Perez Residence the modernist architect Rino Levi designed the residence with a closed, discrete front elevation featuring solid walls, minimal openings, and privacy barriers. This design approach was central to Levi’s series of “introspective houses” from the late 1950s guided by three core motivations:
- Urban Buffer and Privacy In the mid-20th century, São Paulo was undergoing massive, chaotic industrialization and rapid vehicular expansion. The Castor Delgado Perez Residence was sited along Avenida Nove de Julho, a major, noisy thoroughfare. By sealing off the street elevation with high, opaque walls, Levi created an acoustic and visual shield. The exterior opacity allowed the home to act as an urban sanctuary, isolating the family from street noise, pollution, and public gaze.
- Re-imagining the Relationship with Nature Standard Western residential design often placed a house in the middle of a yard, forcing residents to view nature as an exterior landscape to look at from a distance. Levi wanted to subvert this passive view. By turning the home inward around interior courtyards, glass walls, and open-air side galleries, he effectively pulled nature inside the living space. Working closely with legendary landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx, Levi treated the indoor garden as an active structural room, blurring the boundary between indoor living and outdoor greenery.
- Climatic Comfort and Passive Cooling Levi was deeply concerned with environmental adaptation, striving to reconcile international modernist ideals with Brazil’s tropical reality.
Gemini confirms what I recalled about the design intent. The building was added to the tour focusing on brutalism as a contrast – it is light and airy and indeed the integration of nature is very evident. It recalls for me the case study houses of LA like the Stahl house – all great places to throw a fabulous party.
I remember too this elevated block being quite the curiosity- Levi took his philosophy and was not afraid to challenge convention. To create further space from the urbanization and business of the street, he was quite practical and took the servants quarters as a way to shield further from the street.
Another thing I’ve learned along the way is how key Roberto Burle Marx is in city of São Paolo- I would be curious to flips things on their head and look at the city through the lens of his work. While this residence and FIESP are quite contrasting, what ties them together I learned is that Marx was the landscape designer for both. Skipping ahead to a future post Marx is also the mastermind behind Ibirapuera Park of which Niemeyer I think falsely takes the credit for in popular lore.
Address: Av. Nove de Julho, 5162 – Jardim Europa, São Paulo – SP, 01406-200, Brazil
Website: Archdaily write up
