Lina Bo Bardi
(Rome, Italy, 1914 - São Paulo, Brazil, 1992): Architect, educator, and writer. Beyond her important role as an architectural designer, Lina Bo Bardi is known for her editorial work in Italian magazines such as Domus and Lo Stile. As a teacher, her position regarding the anthropological and human sense of architecture stands out; her processes consider the forms—both epistemological and ecological—of breaking away with the schemes of progress and profitability of modernity and capitalism. Upon arriving in Brazil in 1946, she founded the Museu de Arte de São Paulo, the Instituto de Arte Contemporânea, and Habitat magazine together with her husband Pietro Maria Bardi. Between 1959 and 1963, she was director of the Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia, where she conceives the creation of a “school-museum” of folk art. In addition to this, Lina was very actively engaged in the cultural and architectural debate of this country, making her way into folk art, scenography, illustration, academia, furniture and object design, among others. Through her work and from her peculiar human sensibility, Bo Bardi strove to experiment and materialize programs that enriched collective life with the creation of open environments capable of adapting to the unforeseen, of welcoming the contingency and spontaneity of daily life, and of responding to the needs of its users.
