DOKU.ARTS
Zeughauskino Berlin
10.09.–12.10.2014
Precise Poetry – Lina Bò Bardi's Architecture
Lina Bò Bardi (1914–92) was one of the few female architects who made a crucial contribution to modernism. She especially enriched her adoptive city, São Paulo, and the coastal town Salvador da Bahia with several expressive architectural icons such as the Museu de Arte de São Paulo or MASP (1957–68), the sports and cultural center SESC Pompéia (1977–86), and the residence Casa de Vidro (1951). The points of departure for her architecture, stage sets, furniture design, and graphic works were influences from international modernism but above all an intense grappling with the local culture, craft traditions, and social situation. It was not initially a foregone conclusion that Bò Bardi would ever be allowed to build. Her career began in Milan under Gio Ponti, the famous architect and editor of the architecture and design magazine Domus. Like many female architects at the time, she did not realise any buildings, but was primarily active as a journalist. In 1946 she and her husband – the gallery owner, art critic, and journalist Pietro Maria Bardi – moved to São Paulo, where both of them saw better design opportunities for their work. “In 1946 we realized that our dream of a modern and free Italy was already over.” On the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of Bò Bardi’s birth, the director Belinda Rukschcio traveled to Brazil. She very fastidiously presents the central buildings by Bò Bardi in São Paulo and Salvador da Bahia and reveals how they are integrated into the city as well as their architectural details. The footage of the architecture is complemented by explanations and commentaries by former employees, friends, and comradesinarms. The result is a wonderfully calm film that captures for the first time the poetry of Bò Bardi’s architecture.
Belinda Rukschcio
Belinda Rukschcio received a degree in fashion design in Vienna and studied architecture at the Vienna University of Technology. In complement to her work as an architect, she worked as a project manager in Broadcasting Architecture. Her emphasis is on sociocritical issues and their interpretation and depiction in architecture and design. Since 2009, Belinda Rukschcio has worked in an academic capacity at universities including the Vienna University of Technology, the Bauhaus University in Weimar, and currently at the BTU Cottbus. She released her first documentary, Precise Poetry – Lina Bò Bardi's Architecture, in 2013. She lives and works in Berlin.