Papers by Victor Próspero
Arquitecturas del Sur, 2024
This article examines the relationship between modern architecture and the Brazilian Military Dic... more This article examines the relationship between modern architecture and the Brazilian Military Dictatorship (1964-1985) in the case of the military headquarters designed by communist architects for a violently anti-communist regime: the Second Army Headquarters in Ibirapuera, a project by a team led by the architect Paulo Bastos, a case with strong symbolic entanglements in the heart of São Paulo. Although the architects were against the regime and were the target of the dictatorship’s repression, a close look at this case reveals nuances in the actors’ reactions to that context, as well as a more complex relationship between architecture and authoritarianism, which goes beyond the binary lenses of resistance or collaboration.This case is an important node to reflect on the complex relationships between architecture and politics, especially under authoritarian regimes. It also helps to reflect on modern architecture itself, the immanent contradictions of its objects, and the ambivalences of the epistemological investments that underpin it.
Anais do Museu Paulista: História e Cultura Material, 2021
Nos últimos anos, trabalhos de cunho historiográfico em torno de fontes e arquivos de arquitetura... more Nos últimos anos, trabalhos de cunho historiográfico em torno de fontes e arquivos de arquitetura e urbanismo, assim como iniciativas institucionais e particulares ligadas a questões de preservação, vêm contribuindo para a consolidação de uma agenda coletiva em torno do valor histórico desses acervos no Brasil. Os debates giram em torno de seu papel no interior de instituições culturais, acadêmicas e profissionais, e de sua relevância para a formação, a memória e a prática em arquitetura e urbanismo. Nossa intenção aqui é justamente discutir o papel, a agência e as potencialidades desses acervos de arquitetura nas atividades de ensino e pesquisa na área. Inicialmente, apresentamos um quadro geral de alguns acervos de arquitetura no Brasil e suas relações institucionais e com experiências de ensino específicas. Em seguida, refletimos sobre usos pedagógicos recentes desses acervos, destacando algumas experiências didáticas nacionais e estrangeiras. Por fim, discutimos a importância dos acervos especializados para a pesquisa na área, seus significados, possibilidades e dilemas contemporâneos. Desse modo, pretendemos contribuir para a definição de estratégias ligadas à constituição, à preservação e ao uso de acervos de arquitetura e urbanismo no interior de instituições acadêmicas no país.
In recent years, historiographical works on architectural and planning sources or archives, as well as institutional or private initiatives aimed at preservation issues, have helped to consolidate a collective agenda around the historical value of these collections in Brazil. Debates revolve around their role within cultural, academic, and professional institutions, and their relevance to education, memory, and practice in architecture and urbanism. This article aims to speculate about the roles, agencies, powers, and limits of architectural collections in contemporary teaching and research practices. To this end, it first presents an outlook of architectural collections in Brazil and their relations with different academic institutions. Then, the text will comment on recent pedagogical uses of architectural and planning collections, highlighting some teaching experiences in both the national and international context. Finally, it discusses the importance of specialized collections to research in the field of architecture and urban planning, as well as their contemporary meanings, possibilities, and dilemmas. This study is expected to contribute to the definition of strategies on the constitution, preservation, and use of architectural and planning collections within academic institutions in Brazil.
Risco Revista de Pesquisa em Arquitetura e Urbanismo (Online)
Este artigo buscará analisar as categorias Megaforma, de Kenneth Frampton, e Megaestrutura, de Re... more Este artigo buscará analisar as categorias Megaforma, de Kenneth Frampton, e Megaestrutura, de Reyner Banham, situando-as a partir da abordagem teórica de cada um desses historiadores da arquitetura. Entendemos como fundamental a leitura crítica e historicamente situada dessas categorias, tratando-as em relação a outros conceitos aos quais estas se referem, como as ideias de lugar e território , de modo a trazer a tona também os aspectos de dimensão política implicados em ambos os casos. A pertinência desses termos nas leituras historiográficas da arquitetura brasileira aparecerá também como importante objeto de reflexão.
Revista Risco, 2018
This article aims an analysis of the categories Megaform, by Kenneth Frampton, and Megastructure,... more This article aims an analysis of the categories Megaform, by Kenneth Frampton, and Megastructure, by Reyner Banham, facing them by the theoretical approach of both architecture historians. It is central to make a critical and historically bounded reading of these categories, treating them concerning other concepts to which they refer, such as the ideas of place and territory, in a way to bring up also elements of a political dimension implied in it. The pertinence of both terms in Brazilian architecture historiography also appears as an essential object of reflection.
Trabalho Final de Graduação
Este trabalho tornou-se possível e prazeroso graças ao contato com algumas pessoas. Agradeço espe... more Este trabalho tornou-se possível e prazeroso graças ao contato com algumas pessoas. Agradeço especialmente ao professor José Lira, por orientar o trabalho, pela sinceridade e atenção nas importantes críticas ao longo de todo o processo; seu papel de orientador, desde 2009, foi decisivo para minha formação.
Pesquisa de iniciação científica - 2010
CAA.reviews, Mar 14, 2024
6º Seminário DOCOMOMO SP, 2018
Anais do 13o Docomomo Brasil, 2019
Conference Presentations by Victor Próspero
New England Chapter - Society of Architectural Historians, 2022
4o Seminário de História e Fundamentos da Arquitetura e do Urbanismo - FAUUSP, 2023
Seminário Enquadrar a História Desenquadrar a Arquitetura, 2023
Encontro da Associação de Brasilianistas na Europa, Lisboa, 2023
Encontro da Associação Nacional de Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação em Arquitetura e Urbanismo, 2021
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Papers by Victor Próspero
In recent years, historiographical works on architectural and planning sources or archives, as well as institutional or private initiatives aimed at preservation issues, have helped to consolidate a collective agenda around the historical value of these collections in Brazil. Debates revolve around their role within cultural, academic, and professional institutions, and their relevance to education, memory, and practice in architecture and urbanism. This article aims to speculate about the roles, agencies, powers, and limits of architectural collections in contemporary teaching and research practices. To this end, it first presents an outlook of architectural collections in Brazil and their relations with different academic institutions. Then, the text will comment on recent pedagogical uses of architectural and planning collections, highlighting some teaching experiences in both the national and international context. Finally, it discusses the importance of specialized collections to research in the field of architecture and urban planning, as well as their contemporary meanings, possibilities, and dilemmas. This study is expected to contribute to the definition of strategies on the constitution, preservation, and use of architectural and planning collections within academic institutions in Brazil.
Conference Presentations by Victor Próspero
In recent years, historiographical works on architectural and planning sources or archives, as well as institutional or private initiatives aimed at preservation issues, have helped to consolidate a collective agenda around the historical value of these collections in Brazil. Debates revolve around their role within cultural, academic, and professional institutions, and their relevance to education, memory, and practice in architecture and urbanism. This article aims to speculate about the roles, agencies, powers, and limits of architectural collections in contemporary teaching and research practices. To this end, it first presents an outlook of architectural collections in Brazil and their relations with different academic institutions. Then, the text will comment on recent pedagogical uses of architectural and planning collections, highlighting some teaching experiences in both the national and international context. Finally, it discusses the importance of specialized collections to research in the field of architecture and urban planning, as well as their contemporary meanings, possibilities, and dilemmas. This study is expected to contribute to the definition of strategies on the constitution, preservation, and use of architectural and planning collections within academic institutions in Brazil.
Foi comum a abordagem do golpe civil-militar de 1964 como marco de interrupção para uma arquitetura que se afirmava. As duas décadas seguintes, no entanto, parecem demonstrar o contrário, seja pela permanência e difusão dos procedimentos técnicos e estéticos que se consolidaram no início daquela década, seja pelo salto quantitativo nas encomendas que acabaram por mobilizar esse saber-fazer. Se é certo que as expectativas de transformação social que acompanhavam aquela nova estética de fato saíram de cena, também podemos afirmar que – com base em autoritarismo e aumento das desigualdades – o “desenvolvimento das forças produtivas” só se intensificou. Os projetos de racionalização e planejamento dos arquitetos de alguma forma se realizavam, expondo contradições inerentes às apostas de modernização que os animavam. Para além de constatar ou denunciar um quadro contraditório, propõe-se aqui ler as ambivalências nas realizações concretas do período, entre encomendas públicas e privadas – sindicatos, quartéis, clubes, terminais, barragens, sedes administrativas, agências bancárias, torres de escritórios – que mobilizaram essa estética particular e, com ela, um aparato simbólico em disputa.
ABSTRACT
The so-called “Paulista architecture” emerged as a recognizable identity in the early 1960s, but it was mainly during the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985) that it established itself. This research seeks to understand the links and conflicts between aesthetics and politics, as well as the impasses of that professional field at the period. Important nuances and shifts appear when we overcome the approach to the dictatorship simply as background, or through narratives anchored only in the social memory built by the period’s actors themselves, or even from a reading of them through the dual lens of resistance-collaboration. We propose, therefore, to look at the complexity of this historical moment through the different forms of intervention, response, adaptation, insertion, or accommodation that architects found in a context of intense repression combined with unprecedented economic growth and a construction industry boom.
Current narratives usually approach the civil-military coup of 1964 as a break for an architectural approach that was settling itself. The following two decades, however, seem to demonstrate otherwise, either by the permanence and spread of technical and aesthetic procedures that were consolidated at the beginning of that decade, or by the quantitative leap in commissions that mobilized such know-how. If it is true that the expectations of social trans- formation attached to that new aesthetics were indeed interrupted, we can also affirm that—based on authoritarianism and increasing inequalities—the “productive forces development” was only intensified. The architects’ rationali- zation and planning wills were somehow put into practice, exposing contradic- tions inherent to the modernization stakes that motivated them. Beyond stating or denouncing a contradictory picture, we propose here to read the ambivalences in concrete achievements of the period, between public and private commissions—unions, military barracks, clubs, terminals, dams, administrative headquarters, bank agencies, and office towers—that mobilized this particular aesthetic and, together with it, a symbolic apparatus in dispute.