Crossing the borders of the private space. Manipulation of the limits of the space in the domestic architecture by Vilanova Artigas and Paulo Mendes da Rocha

Abstract

The present article starts from an analysis on the relation between the limits and the configuration of domestic architecture, and the type of family that occupies it to clarify how the spatial solutions are only a reflection of the individual relations inside these groups. Brazilian architects of the 20th century, with figures such as Paulo Mendes de Rocha and Vilanova Artigas, were able to find and develop their own architecture that reflected the beating of a new nation. Through their spatial experiences they succeeded in criticizing the bourgeois class that dominated Brazilian society since the beginning of the American colonization. The spatial solutions of its architecture imply a message addressed to the whole society. For the mentioned architects, architecture becomes a tool capable of modifying the spatiality of the domestic sphere and with it, the relations within the family groups that inhabit it. The manipulation of the boundaries within the dwelling itself and regarding the context –urban or natural– raises a new understanding of the subject within the family structure and with the society that inhabits it.