(b Vitória, Espirito Santo, 25 Oct 1928). Brazilian architect. He graduated in architecture in 1954 from Mackenzie University, São Paulo, one of a new generation of professionals from the newly created, autonomous architecture faculties that replaced the specialist courses in engineering schools. He entered private practice in São Paulo in 1955, and in 1957 he won a competition for the Paulistano Athletics Club, São Paulo. His design incorporated an ingenious structural system and a dramatic trussed roof; it also won a prize at the 1961 Biennale in São Paulo. In 1961 he was invited by João B. Vilanova Artigas, one of the runners-up in the competition for the athletics club, to lecture at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of São Paulo; he was dismissed by the military government in 1969 because of his political views. His architecture was increasingly influenced by Brutalism; the influence of Artigas was particularly evident in his early designs, although he also admired Oscar Niemeyer and Affonso Eduardo Reidy. His affinity with Artigas can be seen in his ability to create imaginative and unexpected spatial solutions from architectural briefs. Other buildings resulting from prizewinning competition entries include the Jockey Club (1963), Goiânia, and the Brazilian Pavilion (1970; with Flavio Motta, Julio Katinsky and Ruy Ohtake) at Expo’ 70 in Osaka, Japan, and in 1971 he was placed in the international competition for the design of the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. During the 1960s and 1970s, frequently working with others, he completed several schools and housing estates, office buildings such as the Municipal Insurance Headquarters (1975) in the new administrative centre of São Paulo, cultural buildings such as the Museu de Arte Contemporânea (1975; with Jorge Wilheim) at the University of São Paulo, and university buildings such as those (1977) at Rondonôpolis, Mato Grosso.

• Mendes da Rocha, Paulo (Archias)
  • Brazil, §IV, 2(iii): Architecture, after 1960
  • Wilheim, Jorge