Favela Fantasy: Gaudi Mashup in Sao Paulo
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 10.19.07
Estevao Silva da Conceicao, in a favela in Sao Paulo, has recycled as decorations every kind of imaginable object from plates, cups, and statues, to typewriters and mobile phones. It has become a tourist attraction; many compare it to the the Parc Guell by Antoni Gaudi in Barcelona. The BBC notes:
What seems most striking is that a man who had never heard of the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi has built something so similar to his style. Estevao, 50, simply set out to build a house where he could live, and which later became a home for his wife and two children.The facade at the front has often been compared to features in the world-famous Parc Guell in Barcelona. It was only seven years ago when a passing architecture student spotted the house that he became aware of the connection between his work and that of Gaudi.
Using basic everyday material, sometimes retrieved from the rubbish, this kind of project is sometimes called "spontaneous architecture". It involves a visionary project, carried out without following any rules, by someone with no formal training.
His ideas have evolved over the years and the design often changes.
"When I first built the house using wood, people used to say it looked like an indigenous or Indian house. Then I started to change, and the structure is made with iron." ::BBC slideshow and article via ::Core77
See also Bernard Rudofsky on Architecture without Architects
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Incredible! I would love to visit it!
Very nice.
But the work is much more similar to Simon Rodia's Watts Tower in LA. It also has similarities to a number of other folk art constructions throughout the US.
There seems to be a universal impulse to create design and ornament from the materials of your everyday life and immediate surroundings. This could help explain why modern architecture, with its lack of texture and abstraction, has had such a difficult time gaining popular acceptance.
This is a very cool idea! Philadelphia also has it's own mosaic sculptures and 'garden' made of old bathroom tiles, discarded glass bottles, bicycle wheel frames and other recycleables that otherwise would have been trash!
Magic Garden on 1000-1100 Block of South St.
http://www.philadelphiasmagicgardens.org/
It looks like the Watts Towers in Los Angeles. If you can't make it to Barcelona or Sao Paulo come to Watts! Seriously it's worth it. Don't just walk by either, arrange for a tour.
This reminds me of the Grotto in Iowa (without the religious overtones, of course).
http://www.westbendiowa.com/
it was very good i couldnt do that it looks as good as a peace of art .
im doing my homework and came across this page on favelas in brazil and its good very good indeed.
xxxx bi