BERLIN.- In the exhibition Lina Bo Bardi – The Poetry of Concrete, the Museum of Architectural Drawing presents a selection of 40 drawings by the architect Lina Bo Bardi, which are being shown together for the first time in Europe.

Lina Bo Bardi (1914–1992) was born Achilina di Enrico Bo in Rome and immigrated to Brazil in 1946 with her husband Pietro Maria Bardi. The high point of her recognition came in 2021, when she was posthumously awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Architecture Biennale for her life’s work. In 2024 her work will be represented at the 60th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia.

The exhibits come from the collection of the Instituto Bardi, founded by Lina Bo and Pietro Maria Bardi. The drawings served as sketches and designs for six realised projects for cultural institutions: Casa de Vidro, Solar do Unhão, MASP – Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Teatro Oficina, SESC Pompéia and Casa do Benin. They are spaces for socialization, created to promote the social and cultural potential of architecture and culture. They enter into a dialogue with photographs by the artist Veronika Kellndorfer, who researches Lina Bo Bardi’s buildings to explore how we can read the architectural memory of society.

In a poetic, playful and informal fashion, Bo Bardi presented her ideas in drawings that illustrated her view of a building as a total work of art. She often used innovative construction materials such as glass and concrete, which, notwithstanding their structural contrasts, form an impressive harmony in her work and came to establish themselves as integral components of Brazilian modernism.

Surveying her entire graphic work, we can see a wide range of motifs that at first glance seem modest and unassuming. Bo Bardi constantly recorded her ideas, concepts and perceptions regarding architecture, design and lifestyle. Drawings were for her an indispensable means of manifesting the foundations of her way of thinking and illustrating the resultant premises. They were not intended to be independent works of art or documents for analysing planned buildings, objects or work processes, but rather to serve as the visualisation of ideas and a guide for the creative process. In addition, they capture a vital existence that can be interpreted metaphorically in the physical structures of her architecture as the ambience, significance and vivification of space.

The exhibition is curated by art historian Tereza de Arruda.