Vila Modernista: a new destination for the Brazilian art circuit

2023-07-10 19:10:48

9 minutes to read

By Carla Gil

Those who cross the corner of Alamedas Lorena and Ministro Rocha Azevedo, in the Jardins district, may come across a small blue sign indicating: Vila Flávio de Carvalho. The plaque, which is part of the Memória Paulistana project, an initiative of the Department of Historical Heritage, recalls the set of houses that played a relevant role in the history of Brazilian art and that today host a series of stores, restaurants and galleries important for the artistic circuit. from the city.

Vila Modernista, also known as Vila América, was designed between 1936 and 1938 by artist and architect Flávio de Carvalho. Accompanying the modernization of residential architecture that had begun in São Paulo with the construction of the first Modernist House – built by Gregori Warchavchik in the Vila Mariana neighborhood, the project aimed to transform people’s relationship with their homes and the city. Although there is a relationship between their work, Warchavchik’s work was more related to Bauhaus, the school that innovated modern architecture by uniting aesthetics and functionality, while Flávio de Carvalho’s work was more linked to experimentalism and creative freedom, characteristics that were present in all his work as an artist.

Flávio de Carvalho, the great provocateur

Flávio Resende de Carvalho was born in 1899, in the city of Amparo da Barra Mansa, in Rio de Janeiro. When he was just one year old, his family moved to São Paulo, where he spent his entire childhood, until he turned 12 and moved to Europe. In Paris and London, Flávio de Carvalho completed basic education and enrolled in civil engineering and arts courses. In 1922, following completing his studies, he returned to Brazil and spent his life between the capital of São Paulo and the city of Valinhos, where he died at the age of 73.

He was a multifunctional artist: painting, architecture, scenography, decoration and many others were his areas of expertise in the field of the arts. In all of them, he stood out for adopting a provocative, radical and critical stance in relation to the bourgeois and moralistic customs of society. Her performance in the theater was marked by actions that made room for new ways of thinking regarding artistic processes in Brazil, as in the case of her performance “Experiência n° 3”, from 1956, in which she paraded through the streets of São Paulo wearing a blouse, short skirt and fishnet stockings. At the time, her “tropical outfit” caused controversy among the public and the discussion regarding gender in fashion generated repercussions in the local press.

Flávio de Carvalho walking around São Paulo in his “tropical costume”, accompanied by the crowd, 1953. Image: CEDAE Archive – IEL/Universidade Estadual de Campinas

In 1930, he participated in the Pan-American Congress of Architects presenting the conference “The city of the naked man”, in which he defended the construction of a new city, without prejudice or “scholastic taboos”. In 1932, he founded the Clube de Artistas Modernos (CAM), together with Antônio Gomide, Di Cavalcanti and Carlos Prado, with the aim of encouraging cultural life in São Paulo and the debate between different artistic languages, such as painting, literature and the music.

As an architect, Flávio de Carvalho participated in several public competitions to carry out his modernist projects, but he never won any of them. His only architectural works executed were the set of houses in Vila Modernista, from 1938, and Fazenda Capuava, from 1939. The latter had decoration as an important factor to synthesize the modernist ideal of the architect, who used elements such as aluminum sheets, fabrics colorful and spacious, without large dividing walls.

To Modernist Village

The set that formed Vila Modernista is made up of 17 houses, 10 of which are independent and face the street, and another 7 are twinned and face the interior of the block, with access via an alley. The project presented three types of plants, each with regarding 100 m2. With white facades and semi-circular structures, the houses have large internal spaces and few walls, suggesting greater integration between the rooms and uniting the social and service areas.

Residential complex designed by Flávio de Carvalho, on the corner of Alamedas Lorena and Ministro Rocha Azevedo. Photo: image from the book “Flávio de Carvalho”, by Luiz Camillo Osório.

The land that housed the village belonged to the family of Flávio de Carvalho and the construction was entirely paid for by the artist. Accompanied by the advertisement “cold houses in summer and warm in winter”, the properties were made to be rented and used according to an instruction manual created by the artist.

Leaflet distributed to buyers of houses in Vila Modernista, by Flávio de Carvalho. Image: ArchDaily

Through these pamphlets, Flávio de Carvalho taught his tenants how to use the houses properly. His idea was to provide comfort and practicality for the modern life that was beginning to emerge in cities. With smaller spaces and integrated environments, Vila Modernista encouraged residents to frequent more public spaces and coexistence, extending the environment of private life to the backyard of the village and, later, to the street.

However, the construction did not please a large part of the population at the time and Flávio de Carvalho had to, little by little, sell his rental houses. Some artists and intellectuals even became interested in the properties, such as the case of the writer and activist Patrícia Galvão, known as Pagu, who lived in the village for a period, but that was not enough to keep the leases. The architect of the complex himself lived in one of the houses: on the corner between the two avenues, Flávio used the upper floor of the property as a home, while he kept the “Vaca” store on the ground floor, where he sold dairy products produced on his farm in Valinhos, in São Paulo. Years later, between the 1950s and 1960s, the corner house was demolished to make way for a residential building.

Without an expressive number of families to occupy the houses, Vila Modernista faced a series of changes that led to the almost complete de-characterization of the space. Over the years, the place ceased to accommodate homes, to receive different types of trade and services. Among the reforms and structural works that this change in public has generated, most of the houses have lost their original form. Currently, the modernist complex may even go unnoticed by those who don’t know its history, amid so many buildings built in the surroundings.

In December 2017, the Municipal Council for the Preservation of Historical Heritage (Conpresp) decided not to list the Modernist Village, claiming that the buildings were already very adulterated. Years later, the site was included in the São Paulo Memory Inventory, a project by the Municipal Secretariat of Culture that maps important places in the city that must be recognized and remembered. Since then, different galleries have occupied the modernist houses, giving the space back the possibility of a collective function, as Flávio de Carvalho wanted.

Memorial Plaque, established by the Department of Historical Heritage of São Paulo. Photo: Carla Gil.

Today, 85 years following its inauguration, Vila Modernista can be considered a recent cultural center, which has been gaining strength and notoriety in the metropolis. The place has received more and more visitors interested in knowing the architectural project and the art spaces installed there. Among the factors that influence the change of address of galleries between noble and central neighborhoods of the capital, are the search for new collectors and the desire to explore other environments as exhibition spaces. In this sense, the use of the village refers to a return to the history of Brazilian art as a way of boosting the contemporary artistic circuit.

Interior of Vila Modernista, 2023. Photo: Carla Gil

In recent years, some galleries have moved to Vila Modernista and have contributed to strengthening the place as a cultural center of the city, such as Sé Galeria, Espaço CAMA and CASANOVA Arte. Until the beginning of this year, the Gomide & Co gallery was also part of the group of exhibitors in the village. Its headquarters was even the only one that managed to maintain, following a series of reforms and restorations, the initial structure designed by Flávio de Carvalho. In March, the gallery was transferred to a building on Avenida Paulista and the modernist residence opened space to house a partnership with Casa SP-Arte. Now, the building on Alameda Ministro Rocha Azevedo functions as a permanent exhibition center for the most traditional art and design fair in Latin America, SP-Arte.

Facade of Casa SP-Arte, at Alameda Ministro Rocha Azevedo, 2023. Photo: Carla Gil

With the aim of promoting exhibitions and meetings between gallerists and curators from all over the country, the project was inaugurated with the exhibition “Hélio Oiticica: Mundo-Labirinto”, organized by Gomide & Co. Bringing together works from different stages of the artist’s production, the curatorship sought to synthesize Oiticica’s innovative and experimental essence in a domestic environment, so that the works dialogue directly with the place in which they are inserted. In an interview with Folha de São Paulo, Fernanda Feitosa, director of the fair, stated that “Flávio was a restless and visionary artist, just like Hélio”, and “an exhibition by him really makes the perfect inauguration for this new phase of the house”.

The opening of art spaces in Vila Modernista is part of a broader investment in the cultural destination of the city of São Paulo. Although the gallery circuit is considered a more closed and elitist medium than public institutions such as museums and cultural centers, the expansion of these places aims to contribute to the dissemination of art work in the capital, as well as to the collective fruition intended by Flávio de Oak.

Carla Gil is an independent researcher and a graduate student in Art: History, Criticism and Curatorship at PUC-SP.

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