The Glass House, the meetings with Bo Bardi and firefighter red*

*o artigo " A Casa de Vidro, os encontros com Bo Bardi e o vermelho bombeiro" está disponível em Português através do link: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/casa-de-vidro-os-encontros-com-bo-bardi-e-o-vermelho-paulo-oliveira-/

Although I have been living in the Morumbi neighborhood for many years, in S?o Paulo, and besides my passion for architecture and engineering, only some days ago I visited the Glass House in the companion of my wife. The House is the first Brazilian project of the unforgettable Lina Bo Bardi. It was built in a place where there was a coffee farm before. It′s important to remind that this house was also the first one built at the Morumbi neighborhood and was the home of the couple Pietro Maria Bardi e Lina Bo Bardi. During 4 decades it was a historic meeting point also for being a meeting point of artists and intellectuals.

The imposing facade of the house above pilotis was set to make good use of the natural profile of the floor and exploring materials such as glass, steel and concrete. It′s an icon of the modern architecture in Brazil and one of the four glass houses built by the greatest international architects in 20th century. The house was designated by the CONDEPHAAT as a historic site worthy of preservation in 1987.

House is the first Brazilian project of the unforgettable Lina Bo Bardi. It was built in a place where there was a tee farm before

During my visit, I caught myself several times looking through the immense panels of glass from the floor to the ceiling and imagining how the view was from that high point to the Pinheiros river and the Jardins area. At that time, the south area of S?o Paulo was dominated by the Atlantic Forest and the city was developing on the other side of the Pinheiros river. The house, an architectural icon where the Bardi Institute is today, with a collection compounded by articles, photographies, documents, notes, maquettes, furniture and art objects of the couple, is open to guided visitations that takes one hour. Click here here to make an appointment.

One memory leads to the another

The visit of the Glass House rescued from the deepest of my memory, with clarity and richness of details, the meetings I had with the architect Lina Bo Bardi where we discussed details of the recuperation, reinforcement and protection of reinforced concrete and pre-stressed concrete of MASP- another important architectural icon of S?o Paulo.  

After all, Bo Bardi conceived the architectural project of the museum in a site donated by the S?o Paulo municipality since we respected a condition: the view to Sao Paulo downtown should be kept.                 

The main body of the building, with a gap of 74m, are supported by four lateral pillar hollows of 2,5Mx4M, that supported a 9.200 ton load transmitted by four big prestressed steel beams located above the museum roof. The structural project was made by the distinguished engineer José Carlos de Figueiredo Ferraz, S?o Paulo ex-mayor.

MASP under construction

The Art Museum of S?o Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, or affectionately called MASP, is located in the impressive Paulista Avenue and was built among the years of 1956 and 1968 and opened in November, 1968, with the important presence of Queen Elizabeth II of England .

The great articulator and entrepreneur from Paraiba state Assis Chateaubriand, founder and owner of Diários Associados, the biggest conglomerate of communication in Brazil at that time and one of the most iconic of that period, took the initiative to buy art pieces to establish in Brazil a museum of international level.

The first artworks of MASP were docking in Brazil

At the end of World War II, when Europe was under the reconstruction process, lots of art collections were sold in unprecedented prices because of the overflow of offers. To select valuable and authentic pieces to the museum, Chateaubriand needed a specialized technical support and he asked Pietro Maria Bardi, Lina Bo Bardi′s husband, to help him. Pietro was an Italian art critic, art curator and journalist, so he accepted the invitation and guaranteed that there wouldn′t be distinction among the arts. He baptized the new institution as Art Museum and then he became the MASP director, a position that he occupied for almost half century.

One curiosity to reveal ... Chateaubriand intended to host MASP in Rio de Janeiro, but he decided for S?o Paulo, because he believed that the museum would be more successful in the fundraising needed to build the museum.

MASP is one of the most important Brazilian cultural institutions and it has one of the most complete art collections in the Occidental Latin America. The collection is a historical heritage of the National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage – IPHAN and also has one of the biggest libraries of art in Brazil.  

MASP in 80′s showing its modern structure in fair- fa?ade concrete finish

MASP renovations

In 1999, the edification had some renovations. It obtained structural reinforcement and resafeguarding of four sustained pillars located under the roof, concrete structure recovery, roof impermeabilization, levelling and change of floors. The frames were renewed, the glasses were changed and protection film against ultraviolet rays were installed. The building received other interventions for improvement and modernization of the building system installations, illumination, air conditioner and the installation of a second elevator, according to PINIWEB.

Meetings with Lina

My meetings with the architect Lina Bo Bardi were years before those interventions and in the last years of her life. At that time, I received an invitation from a small committee of experts in this kind of intervention, including some independent consultants, representatives of the company specialized in recuperation and reinforcement services and also the technical board of Municipality of S?o Paulo. The target of the committee was to discuss the concepts and the correct strategy for this important intervention.

I′m so sorry that I can′t remember all the names, but besides the architect Lina Bo Bardi, I remember other participants - my friend Dr. Paulo Helene and the Eng. Elorci de Lima

I should highlight that before my executive career as a leader in the construction product industry and later in the engineering, construction and incorporation sector, I was an expert in materials and techniques of recovery, reinforcement and protection of concrete structures. At that time, I was leading a British Industry in Brazil, leader in products specialized in this kind of application. I was also a speecher and teacher in specialization courses about this area of knowledge.

The interesting fact is the worry about MASP structure culminated in the identification of necessities of intervention. A small failure on concreting the sheath wedge protections of the pretension cables of the support beams in the structure allowed some water infiltration through the empty spaces in the sheaths resulting in a corrosion (not relevant) at the protension cables. The water, in brown color because of the corrosion products, percolated through a crack slab on the roof and started to drip in a Renoir frame (Pink and Blue”) in the middle of main the gallery resulting in a enormous inconvenience! This was the first indication that something was wrong with the structure of the edification. 

Difficult Meetings 

The greatest inconvenience for the architect Lina Bo Bardi was exactly the protection ink system needed to avoid new damages to MASP structure. In her vision, and in any other architects′, any product that could cause modification in the texture or shine of the structure shouldn’t be used. A that time, all MASP structure was in faced concrete with superficial aspect known as “brute forms”; it means the pillars, slabs and beams showed burrs and marks obtained by the juxtaposition of plank forms

In a urban atmosphere as the city of S?o Paulo, full natural acid gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and sulfur dioxide (SO2), the carbonation is a normal problem in faced concrete structures or non- protected protension. It was exactly what was happening in the faced concrete structure of MASP.

The carbonation is a phenomenon that results in the loss of alkalinity in the concrete, so it reduces the capacity of armor protection. The consequence of this kind of corrosion is the same under certain conditions of humidity and the presence of heterogeneities in the structures.

After some services of structural recuperation at MASP, to avoid a future carbonation, the surfaces should be treated and prepared, reducing significantly the burrs resulted of the juxtaposition of shapes, also correcting small superficial defects, allowing all concrete surfaces to receive a good protection system.

Renoir′s Rose and Blue

Once the relaxation of protection cables and the deformation of slabs were confirmed, it was detected the necessity of a bigger intervention to eliminate the causes of the problem, including:

• Cables reprotension;
• Fissure injection of the inferior slab;
• Treatment of the pillar corroded armors, slabs and beams and the execution of repairs located on those three elements;
• Application of a competent protection painting system over a structure to avoid future penetrations of aggressive elements all over it, avoiding the corrosion of the armors;
• Roof Impermeabilization.

 Engineers rebuilding work of art?

Aware of Bo Bardi′s restriction, we proposed a transparent system with two layers:

A waterproofing primer that would not cause any changes to the superficial characteristics of the concrete and one layer in opaque varnish, to avoid superficial shine and carbonation

The architect insisted on the utilization of only a waterproofing primer, even knowing we wouldn′t have the necessary efficiency. So the biggest divergence between the technically necessary to give the edification structure the correct protection and the demanding of full preservation of the original characteristics of the project as the restoration of a work of art.

At the most difficult moments of discussion, I remember the words of the Architect Lina Bo Bardi, always elegantly dressed in black:

 “You engineers should understand that the MASP structure is a piece of work itself. And as us, humans, all of the biggest architectural constructions of the mankind, should mature and “die” one day, becoming a ruin that should be respected historically for all it was and represented.”

Clearly, the content of the speech brings us the artist′s emotion of Bo Bardi and we needed to find a convergence point between the desired and the reasonable to protect the recovered structure, in the name of the durability and good performance of the intervention. We couldn′t disregard the amount of investment that would be made.

The so called Firefighter red

After hours in our last discussion and in the face of the inflexibility of the committee in relation to the adoption of an effective protection system to the structure, the architect Lina Bo Bardi showed us a smile, the first one since we started that negotiation, and she said:

“I know what to do. Follow me”

I remember that she had difficulties to move, then we followed her to the deposit located at MASP basement. She showed us an ancient mockup of the museum with the pillars and the support beams of the roof painted in the color red firefighter and said: “This is what you will do! The original concept of MASP was this. Instead of the opaque varnish, paint the pillars and the support beams with the appropriate protective ink at this color! Pietro has always preferred this version!”

Actual MASP configuration with pillars and supported beams colored firefighter red

After some years, the MASP went through an intervention that gave it an award as an icon of renewed and different shape, with pillars and supported beams colored in red firefighter. 

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About the author

Paulo Oliveira – Civil Engineer | PMP | International Executive MBA at FIA/USP | Executive Director | CEO | Board Member | Mentor | Strategic Leader. Speaker in the National and International Congress, with more than 50 published papers.

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