The 1939 New York City World’s Fair pavilion by Oscar Niemeyer and Lucio Costa was designed to change the global image of Brazil. On the world stage, people would see Brazil as a modern and progressive country. The building features strong qualities of typical modern architecture; the integration of a flat roof, pilotis, brisessoleil and a garden. However, the free flowing curves and asymmetrical design make the building unique and plastic.

This project will conduct an investigation into the treatment of space and visual forms of the building. It recognizes the pavilion’s historical context in relationship to the simultaneous Brazilian modern art movement that shared similar sentiments of searching for a ‘Brasilidade’ and also used sinuous and organic forms in painting. 

The first aspect of this study will be the comparison of proportions and perspectives within the building to the ones in Tarsila Do Amaral’s famous paintings, as these characteristics are also present in the pavilion’s landscape, sculptures and paintings. Additionally, it will analyze the 1939 Brazil Pavilion through the lens of plastic integration; the pavilion as a sculptural piece that also frames different forms of art within it. The sculptures, paintings and tactile art that serve as the exhibits are all integrated into the overall architectural design, and they begin to shape the visitor’s experience and understanding of Brazilian culture. Through this analysis of the building’s relationship to the modern art movement and the relationship with its art, the projects aims to prove that the Brazil Pavilion was designed to function not only as an exhibit space, but as a fully integrated piece of plastic architecture.

Brazilian Pavilion. Photographer unknown.
1939. Print, Arqtexto no. 16.

The 1939 World’s Fair opened
in Queens with its iconic Trylon and Perisphere and with the slogan “Building the World of Tomorrow”.¹ The fair was meant to boost the faith of the American consumer by focusing on their interests instead of the large corporations that produced the products. This renewed faith in consumption would hopefully stimulate the United States’ slumping economy.² Over 60 foreign nations participated in an attempt to show how modern and advanced their respected country’s industry had become.³ Brazil, ruled by Getúlio Dornelles Vargas, also participated in the fair. During Vargas time in power, he became obsessed with defining a national culture and controlling the “Brazilness” of art, architecture and greater global image. Author Daryle Williams calls this time in Brazil “the culture wars”.⁴ Vargas created a committee to oversee a design competition for Brazil’s pavilion entry. It was made explicit by several committee members that the goal of the pavilion was to show the world the economic strength of

a united Brazil, a homogeneous postrevolution culture and the power of Brazil’s industry.⁵ Minutes from the committee meetings reveal that the jury wanted “an architectural form
capable of translating the expression of the Brazilian environment”.⁶ The question still remained, what type of architecture best communicated these themes? The Vargas regime was still searching for a national architectural style.⁷ To the chagrin of more conservative views that valued the traditional neocolonial and European styles, Vargas’ committee settled on the modern design by Lucio Costa.⁸ In fact, “the committee that awarded the commission to Costa saw in the pavilion ‘a spirit of Brasilidade’”.⁹ The final pavilion design ended up becoming a collaboration between Costa, Oscar Niemeyer and Roberto Burle Marx, the landscape designer, with works on display from the painter, Cândido Portinari. Before the architectural elements of the building are analyzed, it is important to understand the context of the Brazilian modern art movement.

The Trylon and Perisphere -
New York World’s Fair of 1939

Brazilian Modern Art has a particular presence that can be recognized in a split second. Fluid forms, bright colors, disproportionate figures, false perspectives, and strong sense of self- consciousness. The start of the movement was marked in 1922 at The Week of Modern Art festival where modernism had bloomed overnight.¹⁰ The festival introduced new, never seen forms of art to the audience. The works exhibited were of an experimental nature and featured influences from abroad, molded into the unique forms. Brazilian artists took complex western art movements like European Expressionism, Surrealism and Cubism and reinterpreted them in the way that incorporates simpler ways of life, more engaged with the Brazilian reality.¹¹ This resulted in the solutions that are unique and that relate to the traditions of the nation, and allow for fresh understanding and reinterpretation of “the primitive, the modern, and their fusion”.¹² 

The movement came at the time of heightened awareness of acted as a provocateur and opposer to the strict academism of Brazilian Academy of Letters. Quickly gaining traction amongst the society, as well as attention from other nations, Brazilian Modernism became an important milestone for the country.¹³

Key players in the movement included writers, philosophers, and painters. One of the most notable figures in the movement was brazilian poet Oswald de Andrade, whose Manifesto Antropófago (Cannibalism Manifesto) written in 1928 introduced a provocative idea about cannibalism as a form of cultural appropriation.¹⁴
Highly influenced by the visual strategies of art forms produced at the time, the manifesto turned out to become a mission statement of the Brazilian Modernism Movement and presented a strategy for producing artwork.¹⁵ In his writing Oswald explains the movement as a form of ‘cannibalization’ or consumption of other cultures as well as simultaneously referencing the primitivism of native to Brazil cannibal tribes. The two concepts come together to form a new form of consciousness for Brazil, which at the time was looking to strengthen its unique presence in the world.

Tarsila Do Amaral, Oswald’s
wife, is another figure whose work has become one of the most influential in Brazil Modernist Movement.

Before becoming an inspiration behind the ‘cannibalism’ movement, she studied in France where she worked with Fernand Leger in 1923. Leger’s works are known for their ‘mechanical’ character present in “machine-like forms and tubular figures...” where he achieves “...a sense of volume in the bodies of human figures by creating a darker outline around the figures’ rounded limbs and highlighting their centers with lighter paint.”¹⁶ In her work Tarsila reassigns the techniques she learned in Europe to celebrate and portray the lush landscape forms of her own country. Her painting Abaporu (Man Who Eats) has fully embodied the philosophies behind the Manifesto Antropófago and set a standard for the nation through the use native colors and vernacular subject that lay decidedly outside the mainstream of artistic expression.¹⁷

In 1930’s Brazilian art scene started to merge both anthropological movement’s vision with more conventional techniques celebrated by the old Imperial Academy, resulting in the generation of moderate modernism.¹⁸ Candido Portinari is a Brazilian painter who most successfully links the two schools together. In his work he masterfully integrates and enhances the unconventional forms of early modernism with structural order and figurative representation of the Brazilian people. Similarly to Tarsila, Portinari gained his experience in Europe, studying and experiencing art under the more conventional training.¹⁹ “[...] Portinari effected rational structuring of pictorial space modeled on precedents from the Italian Renaissance as well as certain post-Cubist solutions. He superimposed onto this rational structure modular human forms, exalting the figure of the Brazilian worker as a key protagonist in the country’s history.“²⁰ His success in achieving this balance prompted him to become an official painter for many significant events on behalf of Brazilian government.²¹
It is important to emphasize that the success achieved throughout Brazilian Modernist movement was rooted in the rich native Brazilian forms, be they societal primitivism or landscape. Building on the successful techniques found in European art movements at the time, Brazilian artist championed its cultural heritage. Brazilian modernism reignited people’s pride for its country through finding the right way of redefining the meaning of freedom and celebrating national identity, echoing the spirit of post-colonialism. These ideas commemorated through art transcended through various fields and can be found in architecture and landscape architecture as well.

Tarsila do Amaral. Abaporu. 1928. Oil on Canvas.

Tarsila do Amaral. Sol poente. 1929. Oil on Canvas

At the time of the fair in 1939
Oscar Niemeyer and Lucio Costa were  already well known as trend settersnin the modern architecture scene in Brazil. Costa has always striven to reform the outdated architectural principles in his country. He was appointed a director of the National School of Fine Arts in 1931, where his new curriculum for the architecture school inspired a new generation of modernist architects in Brazil.²²Amongst his students was Oscar Niemeyer, with whom he later often collaborated with on the projects that modernized Brazilian architecture such as Ministry of Education and Health in 1937 and the city of Brasilia in late 1950s.²³ Even though Niemeyer learned from the discoveries in the work of Le Corbusier, he, similarly to the Brazilian artists at the time, reinterpreted them to echo the spirit of his country. He found inspiration in forms native and familiar to him: “[...] the elliptical white beaches of Brazil, its sinuous rivers, the rounded towers of its baroque churches, its heaped-up mountains and the curling waves of  the ocean.”²⁴

His material of choice was concrete that liberated him, as it could take any form, allowing for construction of curvilinear forms. Niemeyer strove for harmonious architecture where the knowledge from his modernistpredecessors, memory of his native land, and the use of new technology would fuse together in striking forms of architecture. In return, his work itself resembled artificial forms of landscape.

Niemeyer often collaborated with Roberto Burle Marx, the landscape architect and a painter.²⁵ Burle Marx landscape forms were innovative in the way that it combined his passion for all three disciplines: architecture, landscape, and painting. As a result his modernist drawings and paintings would come to life in urban design.²⁶ Due to Niemeyer and Burle Marx’s unconventional approach and reinterpretation of topography and native land, their collaboration resulted in ‘landscape’ becoming “a metaphor embodying myths concerning the roots of society and the beginnings of architecture”.²⁷ 

Lucio Costa. Brazil Pavilion Concept, Sketch









Oscar Niemeyer. Brazil Pavilion Concept, Sketches