Cheerful irony

I say "Lúcio Costa" and everyone automatically says "Brasília!", but the Brazilian architect — born in 1902 in Toulon, France, and died 1998 in Rio de Janeiro —, was not only the inspired creator of the Plano Piloto, the urban plan by which Brasília was constructed in 41 months, between 1956 and 1960. Costa was also an authority on the colonial history and architecture of his country and, from 1937 to 1972, directed the study and protection division of the national heritage service SPHAN (Serviço do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional). The architect held a joint and unbiased vision of future and past and, indeed, his project for the Jesuit-mission museum in São Miguel das Missões, in the Brazilian State of Rio Grande do Sul, references the baroque architecture of the Reductions.

Lúcio Costa was an open-minded and humorous man and the Riposatevi installation he prepared for the 13th Milan Triennale in 1964 (now reassembled at the Venice Achitecture Biennale by Lauro Cavalcanti, curator of the Brazilian Pavilion, in the Giardini) is a strange ensemble of hammocks hanging from a mesh of steel cables, which in turn are attached to the walls.

More than an invitation to rest, this is a careful structural study, as the weight of the users doesn't alter or curve the line of the cables. Although the hammock is one of the stereotypes we normally associate with Brazil, Costa reminded us in 1964 that "o mesmo povo que descansava em redes sabia, quando necessário, construir uma nova capital em três anos" ("The same people who rested in hammocks could, when necessary, build a new capital in three years").

By contrast, contemporary life is portrayed in the Pavilion by Marcio Kogan, who is no lesser man than his master in terms of irony. The São Paulo architect takes a step back and refrains from an academic and systematic display of his work. Instead, Kogan is the director of Peep, a quasi-soap-opera video that records relationships in the daily existences of a family living in one of his loveliest buildings — Villa V4. These portrayals of everyday life are shown in conjunction and viewed through holes in a large black box, turning the visitors into voyeurs. Not so much an architecture exhibition as an ironical take on its use. Laura Bossi