Lina Bo Bardi : Together

 Lina Bo Bardi respects people more than everything: their energy, what they express, collective freedom. She tries to remove hierarchies and divisions by creating architectures which reflect the texture and the diversity of its country of adoption, Brazil, and by organizing exhibitions of popular art, in which she perceives the poetry of every day. Everywhere in her work - architecture, design of furniture, exhibitions, writing, illustrations, staged-, she shows a sense of the truth and the integrity, and lives herself in agreement with her social and artistic ideas. For Lina, child's game in the shape of hand-made zebra can represent next to a painting of De Chirico or a mobile of Calder, and inspire a new conversation.
This exhibition, which has travelled from London to Paris via Vienna and Basel, reveals not only the face known for Lina Bo Bardi - what she creates in the SESC Pompeia, which continues interaction with the streets of São Paulo-, but also her intimate world: the universe which she creates for herself and her husband, Pietro Maria Bardi, in the glass house ( 1951 ).

Born in Rome in 1914, Lina Bo Bardi, committed to the modern architecture, leaves living in São Paulo in 1946, while she dives into the political ideas and the culture of Brazil. But the real turning point intervenes between 1958 and 1964 when, to Salvador de Bahia, where she lives, she discovers the roots of the Brazilian popular culture, made " of tests and poetry ", and mixes these with the values of the modern Movement. She uses specific techniques of construction taught by the local craftsmen of Museu de Arte Popular doh Unhão, Bahia ( 1959 ). She also plans the creation of centers of small business sector and schools of industrial design. According to her own words: " it was necessary be a museum of art, art in the sense of creation and daily life.”
Years later, to São Paulo, Lina Bo Bardi is in charge of the conception of the SESC Pompeia, a leisure center was built in a former factory. She distributes spaces without hierarchy there: to swim is also important for it as to learn to weave, to attend a jazz concert or to play chess. She creates a culture of the user-friendlinessand the freedom in the diversity, which continues today: it is an environment where the various generations have a dialogue between them, and where the materials which establish the building fit perfectly into the urban fabric.