Publisher's Synopsis
For the first time outside of Brazil, 2G presents the widest selection of the work of this great architect, considered to be the key figure of the architecture created in the city of São Paulo in the 1960s and 1970s. João Vilanova Artigas’s work, which spans five decades in all, is prolific and extensive. Unfortunately, much of this work is in a precarious state of preservation today. As a result, the most expressive group of works that are well - or reasonably well - preserved consists of single-family houses and apartment buildings. These have been chosen according to criteria of aesthetic and discursive importance, mainly from the so-called ‘brutalist’ phase, which is without doubt the architect’s most personal and radical period. Oustanding among his buildings is that for the Faculty of Architecture and Planning of the University of São Paulo (FAU-USP, 1961-1968), João Vilanova Artigas’s undoubted masterpiece. All the photographs that document the buildings have been specially taken for 2G by Nelson Kon, and various project designs have also been redrawn.
