The exhibition Casas – the address of souls, the fruit of ten years of research by photographer Zaida Siqueira in the documentation of ancestral construction techniques used in different regions of Brazil. Curated by Maria Lucia Montes, the show is sponsored by AkzoNobel and supported by Atlas Cerâmica and Cromex.
Houses – the address of souls presents traditional building formulas, their variations and adaptations. In the development of this project, Zaida Siqueira visited 20 Brazilian states recording the wisdom of man when dealing with nature to build his house, handling the land, stones and wood. When establishing similarities according to climatic and soil characteristics, she also observed aspects of flora and fauna.
Cultural influences also appear in his work, as in the malocas (type of community hut used by natives of the Amazon region) in the indigenous lands of Mato Grosso. In the interior of São Paulo and Minas Gerais, states that experienced the culmination of coffee culture, there are records of mansions made of rammed earth and mud. In the São Paulo capital, the construction of the Pátio do Colégio, for example, originally employed these two techniques in building the walls.
The exhibition consists of seventy-two photographs, revealing curious aspects of the construction of Brazilian houses, such as the use of elements such as pounded termite mounds and brown sugar; six installations created by civil engineer Felipe Pinheiro, in which pieces of semi-finished walls illustrate the interior structure of the buildings; six audiovisual files that are part of the documentary series of episodes “Habitar Habitat”, produced in 2013 by Paulo Markun and directed by Sérgio Roizenblit, addressing Brazilian dwellings that bring back the rammed earth, the stick, the adobe, palhoças, stilts and braided for plant cover, made with materials like bamboo and straw.
“The research revealed that these techniques are being resumed in bioconstruction, as they are sustainable and have good acoustic and thermal results, in addition to ecological quality. These buildings generate less impact during construction and can be reabsorbed by nature”.
For Heder Frigo, director AkzoNobel Brasil, sponsor of the exhibition, valuing what has already been done in Brazilian homes is a way of improving more modern concepts in current architecture. “The concept of home as a rescue of culture, society and the environment reinforces our strategy of Human Cities”, he comments.
Biography
For 15 years, the São Paulo journalist and photographer Zaida Siqueira has searched for daily records, establishing bridges between the ancestral and the contemporary. His work is the result of an intense and extensive research of traditions and their current applications in the life of man, in the rural and urban environment, rescuing and valuing this knowledge. At the age of 53, she has developed research in several Brazilian states, also in indigenous communities, published six books and made five exhibitions, Casas – the abode of souls, her sixth project.
The Museu da Casa Brasileira held another exhibition by Zaida Siqueira, called Utensils: the spirit of form, made in partnership with ceramist Caroline Harari. The exhibition presented an artistic record of the production and use of utensils present in the domestic daily life of Brazilian houses.
Brazilian House Museum
The Museu da Casa Brasileira ( MCB ), an institution of the Secretariat of Culture and Creative Economy of the State of São Paulo, is dedicated to the issues of the Brazilian home through architecture and design. Over more than four decades of existence, it has become a national and international reference in these areas for promoting programs such as the Design MCB Award , a competition created in 1986 with the objective of encouraging Brazilian production in the segment, and the Casas do Brasil project, rescue and preservation of memory about the diversity of Brazilian living.
First museum in Brazil dedicated to architecture and design, MCB (Brazilian House Museum) presents temporary exhibitions and holds a collection of Brazilian furniture from the 17th century to the present time. Among the museum´s main features are MCB Design Award, an annual competition held since 1986, and a documentation project mapping typical types of housing in Brazil named “Brazilian Houses”, a work in progress on its fifth edition with annual exhibitions and publications. MCB collection gathers furniture and objects representative of the Brazilian house, trespassing over three centuries of history. MCB´s calendar of cultural events includes free live music concerts on Sundays and free guided evening visits every fortnight. The museum also holds an agenda based in workshops, roundtables, books and magazines launches on a wide range of themes related to Architecture and Design such as City Planning, Sustainability, Conservation, Heritage Buildings and Creative Economy, which forms the core of its activities for Education and Research, enabling national and international exchanges.
The MCB’s program includes temporary exhibitions and an agenda based on debates, lectures and publications that contextualize the museum’s vocation for architecture and design, contributing to the formation of critical thinking on various topics such as urbanism, housing, creative economy, mobility urban and sustainability. The museum dedicates its space to two long-term exhibitions: Remnants of the Atlantic Forest & MCB Collection , with photographic and textual panels that correlate the various types of wood in the MCB collection to the various native species existing in the Atlantic Forest, in addition to presenting a section of the institution’s collection consisting of furniture and objects representative of the Brazilian house from the 17th century to the present day, and A Casa ea Cidade – Crespi Prado Collection , which addresses the residential use of the property that today houses the museum through the daily life and trajectory of its original residents: the couple Renata Crespi and Fábio Prado, protagonist of historical, cultural and urban transformations in the city of São Paulo.
In the digital version, the MCB makes available to the public a detailed survey of information related to the habits of private life since the 16th century in Brazil. The database of Casa Brasileira Equipment, Uses and Customs – Ernani Silva Bruno Archive contains 28,000 files containing travelers’ accounts, fictional literature, family inventories and wills that reveal the cultural habits of the Brazilian house. Under the coordination of historiographer Ernani Silva Bruno, first director of the MCB , the work known as the Ernani Archive is organized into 24 themes between food, construction, domestic customs, furniture and others, and is part of the museum’s archival collection.