The 15th Venice Biennale
Architecture Show on Friday awarded its Golden Lion for career
achievement to Brazil's Paulo Mendes da Rocha.
Mendes da Rocha - known for projects including the Museum
of Contemporary Art at the University of São Paulo and the
Brazilian Sculpture Museum - was selected by this year's
Biennale curator Alejandro Aravena for the prestigious
architecture award.
A citation from Biennale show curator Alejandro Aravena and
the board of Biennale directors praised the architect for the
timelessness of his designs.
"Many decades after being built, each of his projects have
resisted the test of time, both stylistically and physically,"
they said. "This astonishing consistency may be the consequence
of his ideological integrity and his structural genius."
"He is a nonconformist challenger and simultaneously a
passionate realist. His fields of interest are beyond
architecture, in political, social, geographical, historical and
technical realms."
Born in Brazil in 1928, Mendes da Rocha began his career in
São Paulo. He established his office in 1955 and just two years
later completed one of his most important projects - the
Athletic Club of São Paulo.
These were followed by a string of predominantly public
buildings across Brazil, including the Estádio Serra Dourada in
Goiás (1975), the Forma Furniture showroom in São Paulo (1987)
and the Saint Peter Chapel in São Paulo (1987).
He was also responsible for Brazil's pavilion at the 1970
Osaka Expo, and renovated Sao Paulo's oldest fine arts museum,
the Pinacoteca do Estado in 1993.
"The role model he played for many generations of
architects in Brazil, Latin America and everywhere is that of a
person able to join shared and collective efforts, as well as
someone able to attract others to the cause of a better built
environment," said the directors.
The Golden Lion will be awarded to Mendes da Rocha on 28
May 2016 in a ceremony at the Venice Biennale headquarters.
Past recipients of the award include architects Álvaro
Siza, Rem Koolhaas, Frank Gehry and Richard Rogers. Last year
the prize went to architect and philanthropist Phyllis Lambert.
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