A Building without Doors: Vilanova Artigas and the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism Building at the University of São Paulo

Brazilian architect João Batista Vilanova Artigas (1915–85) played a fundamental role in the development of the architectural profession in mid-twentieth-century São Paulo. Artigas, who served as a professor at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of São Paulo (FAU-USP) from the time of its foundation, began in the 1950s to explore new structural solutions using exposed concrete construction. His innovative architectural work opened up new directions for a group of talented Brazilian architects known as the Paulista School. In A Building without Doors: Vilanova Artigas and the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism Building at the University of São Paulo, Décio Otoni de Almeida starts with an analysis of the historiography of modern Brazilian architecture and then proposes a new reading of Artigas’s design for the FAU-USP Building (1961–69), hismasterwork, situating it inside the broader panorama of the Paulista School.