CASA CUBO IN SAO PAULO DESIGN BY ISAY WEINFELD
CASA CUBO IN SAO PAULO DESIGN BY ISAY WEINFELD
Casa Cubo is yet another multifunctional development created
with the promotion of the arts in mind. Commissioned by a couple of art
collectors (who decided to remain anonymous), this minimalist three-storey
building was designed by Isay Weinfeld, one of Brazil’s most prominent
architects. Located in the affluent Jardins neighbourhood in São
Paulo, Casa Cubo’s intended dual functionality comprises a private gallery
dedicated to showcasing the owners’ art collection and a fully-equipped
guesthouse.
Split across three floors, the uniformly white interior with its
sombre polished concrete floors provides the perfect blank canvas to showcase
the impressive array of works which include lead-and-fiberglass
suspended sculptures byAntony Gormley, Marina Abramovic’s quietly
unnerving Double Edge ladder, Tony Cragg’s voluptuous sculpture Secretions
as well as Mona Hatoum’s Traffic suitcases, displayed against the backdrop
of Tracey Emin’s quilt Message of Ascension. Apart from the artworks,
Casa Cubo is also home to an impressive collection of midcentury furniture by a
number of much-acclaimed designers such as Lina Bo Bardi, José Zanine Caldas,Gio
Ponti and Alvar Aalto on display in the house’s two main
areas: a high-ceilinged living room/lounge and an open-plan library located on
the mezzanine above.
Surrounded by lush greenery, the house also features two distinctly
different but equally striking floating staircases; a zigzagging steel
staircase connecting the ground floor with the library and Weinfeld’s specially
designed spiral Brazilian ironwood floating staircase which leads from the
library to the three private bedrooms and a living room upstairs.
The 715-square-meters house was completed in September 2011.
Photo © Fernando Guerra, FG+SG Architectural Photography.
http://ultimasreportagens.com/ultimas.php
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ISAY WEINFELD
Isay Weinfeld is one
of Brazil's leading contemporary architects. Born in São Paulo in 1952, he
studied at the School of Architecture at the city's Mackenzie University and
launched his multidisciplinary practice in 1973.
Working predominantly in his home country, he has designed numerous
private residences as well as apartment buildings, hotels, shops, banks and
restaurants.
I quoted interview from Dezeen web page by Alyn Griffiths
Alyn Griffiths: Do you have a particular visual language or material palette?
Isay Weinfeld: No never. I run from belonging to any school or any style, I
hate to be labelled, I prefer not to have a style, I am more free. I choose
materials according to the project, according to the clients, the country, the
project that I am designing and I love all the materials.
Alyn Griffiths: How does it feel to look back over your career?
Isay Weinfeld: I don't like to look back, to be honest. But one of the
things that I am very proud of is the wide variety of work. I could never stay
designing the same thing in my life or be specialised designing houses or
hotels or restaurants. Since the first year I tried not to take jobs that were
related to the last one.
I am curious about things, I like to design things I haven't done
before, to learn more about it and this is what moved me. I remember one summer
a private foundation, a family of art collectors from the south of Brazil,
called me to design a very small cultural centre for their foundation. They
told me they needed to have a small art gallery inside.
I said I already designed two art galleries, and they also said
they needed a bar, and I said I designed some bars already. Then they said they
need a restaurant inside, but I already designed this. Then I noticed I know
how to manage some of my instruments of work.
Alyn Griffiths: It sounds like you've designed everything!
Isay Weinfeld: No, not yet! I would love to design a brothel or a gas
station.
Alyn Griffiths: How do you choose which projects to take on?
Isay Weinfeld: I pay a lot of respect to the people who find my telephone
number and ask me to design something. This respect is maybe the most important
thing in my relation with my clients. I would never design a house that I want
to design, in the way that I want to design. I always try to design a house
they want but through my eyes. This is a very subtle difference that is very
important to me.
It's very common to hear an architect saying that clients ruin
their work and it's never happened [with me] – the client always adds to my
work because I always choose them very carefully. I select not because I am
arrogant, but because I'm honest. Maybe I'm not the right architect to do your
work, maybe I'm not capable.
If you are a good client for me, and I am a good architect for you,
we for sure will be happy together. But we need to have respect. The client
also adds, mainly in a private house, because it's their house, not my house.
The client is giving you an opportunity, so to make your own masterpiece is
disrespectful in my opinion.
Alyn Griffiths: Is that an unusual approach?
Isay Weinfeld: Yes, it's a big problem. At least in my profession, it's all
about yourself and I am just a servant, I am hired to serve somebody with
pleasure.
Alyn Griffiths: Are there any other architects whose work inspires you?
Isay Weinfeld: No. I have three or four architects that I love but I'm not
inspired by them. If I love arts and music and theatre, I am much more inspired
by the other arts than architecture.
Alyn Griffiths: How do those translate into your work?
Isay Weinfeld: Oh I don't know, I don't know how but it's very clear and
very present. Because I see a lot of relation between all this art. One day I
designed a disco that was completely dark but very colourful inside. The sink and
the restrooms, the tiles, some furniture, the whole thing was black. But
certainly we had these colours all over like a rainbow.
Then I heard a track by my favourite band Radiohead called Motion
Picture Soundtrack and it was unbelievable – the translation of that work. It
was not the music that inspired my work but it was exactly the same, it was
music that started completely black and then turned into a rainbow of colours
at the end and I put this music in my office for the rest of the team to hear and
to see if they felt like me.
I always see relations between all the visual arts – you have now
at the Tate Modern a wonderful exhibition by a Brazilian artist called Mira
Schendel. She's my favourite artist and she died many years ago but I am always
trying to do what she achieved in her life; very strong and minimal work. She
is a great influence in my work also.
Alyn Griffiths: What do you think about current contemporary Brazilian
culture?
Isay Weinfeld: I think many things are happening but maybe these were
happening before. It has waves, I think that the world is paying more attention
because now it's Brazil and in a year it'll be the Philippines. But in Brazil,
São Paolo is always an energetic city with a very creative feeling, many
movements of architecture and music are always booming. I can see, as a
Brazilian, many interesting movements, all over Brazil.
Alyn Griffiths: There seems to be a renewed interest in Brazilian architects
such as Lina Bo Bardi.
Isay Weinfeld: Yes, it's a pity that people are only now knowing who Lina Bo
Bardi is. She is my favourite Brazilian architect and her work is amazing and I
am very glad that the world is paying attention to her work. It is a mix of
very strong Brazilian soul with pure lines and she worked very intensively in
Bahia and with the people of the state. She was Italian and they have a very
strong relation with the culture of Brazil.
Alyn Griffiths: There seems to be such a disparity between wealth and poverty
in Brazil – can architecture help bridge that gap and address some of the other
social issues in Brazil's cities?
Isay Weinfeld: It's difficult, but maybe yes. I don't believe that
architecture has this power. We know that very young people are redesigning
some very poor villas and I know that the poor people, when they see a new
building ready, they want to move to the new one, not because it's new but
because it has a better space and a better way to live. This is why I think
architecture helps to create better places for people to live in.
Alyn Griffiths: Your 360º Building tries
to provide more outdoor space for people in urban areas – how could that be
applied to the rest of Brazil's overcrowded cities?
Isay Weinfeld: This is just a small example, we have also the problem with
security so it was a way to have your house above in a building, with a garden
or a courtyard the same size as the space inside but open and more protected.
This is something that is missing in Brazil because of security; to have your
own small house with a garden, so this offers an answer to people who want
spaces like this.
Alyn Griffiths: Why did you choose to get involved with that project?
Isay Weinfeld: With a building, when you first have some ideas and for
commercial business, it's difficult to have a real estate guy with something
good in mind that is not just to earn more money. I am working now for a
company who think about doing something interesting in the city for people to
change the relation with the city again so buildings don't have so many fences,
so many guards.
They want this and they are trying to do things better. It moves me
to work and to do something that is much more than a private house, where I can
interfere in the city and try to make new ways of living and help people live
better.
Alyn Griffiths: What else are you working on at the moment?
Isay Weinfeld: I think some eight or ten houses. We are doing more than ten
buildings. One is starting now: its a competition that we won in Monaco for a
residential building for the Royal family. It was a private competition between
ten offices that we won one and a half years ago. They are now starting to
build it. Another building in Montevideo in Uruguay, it's also a residential
building. Three hotels, one in Brasilia and two in the state of Bahia, one in
city of Salvador, the other one in Trancoso.
The client in Brasilia is private client that I designed a house
for twelve years ago. They are lawyers but they love architecture. In the city
of of Brasilia, it's divided in the main axis of the city, and there's a place
just for hotels and they have the last lot for a hotel in Brasilia. They called
me to design a huge executive hotel that's very well designed, that we are
doing. It's 300 rooms and will be ready next year. There are many other things
including two houses in Miami and a house in the Carribbean, and I'm starting
something here in New York also.
Alyn Griffiths: Are you involved in any projects related to next year's World
Cup?
Isay Weinfeld: No but I'm trying to see my idol Neymar – he's a genius! When
he was playing in Brazil, I used to go to Santos where he played. I saw Pele
many times in my life but after Pele, this is the guy.
Alyn Griffiths: Tell me about the scope of this exhibition at Espasso in New
York.
Isay Weinfeld: I don't know if its an exhibition but its the launch of my
new book in New York that is a selection of commercial works. The previous one
was just residential and this one is commercial. We have here in New York a big
space, to make this launch of the book, they suggested to me to show all forty
years of my work, showing photos, drawings, models, everything about my whole
life designing. But this is not me in this way and I'm not this kind of guy who
wants to come to New York or London to show myself in this very obvious way and
I am not looking for new clients! I don't have any interest to show my work
like this. Then I decided to think about something more certain and concise
about my view of my profession.
So I made a small pavilion with two rooms inside a white box, and
it has two pieces inside that express exactly what I think about life and my
profession. I designed a cradle made with Brazilian wood and some fabric inside
and placed it in a square, completely black room with a very subtle light above
it. Then you have a black corridor that opens suddenly to a very bright white
room where there is a coffin, using the same fabric as the cradle.
Apart from these exhibits, we are also showing a part of a new
project that we are doing, mixing architecture, cinema and music that is my
great passion. It's a very short film, about my works, but there's no
commentary because it's very short, it's two minutes maximum, showing my view
of my works. There are now 40 films ready, there will be between 80 and 100.
But we have 40 ready and we are showing 14 of these films on a loop here in the
exhibition. This project will launch in December in Brazil and we are also
designing an app. Every two weeks it will upload a new film in your iPhone.
Alyn Griffiths: What is the significance of the crib and the coffin in the
Espasso gallery?
Isay Weinfeld: I always try to design everything in my profession: if I
design a house, I design the interiors, the bell, everything. I see
architecture as a whole thing, as if I was an art director. This idea expresses
my wish to design from the beginning of life to the end.
http://www.isayweinfeld.com/
