Mário de Andrade begins this text by questioning the term “architecture” and its meaning. In his view, architectural laws obey both the laws of nature and the laws of humans that lead to arbitrary personal impulses. He establishes a difference between the dazzling aesthetic category of “the beautiful,” on the one hand, and the decorative or the ornamental, on the other, which, in his view, come after beauty. He also believes that a building’s functionality reflects human functionality such that—paraphrasing, though not mentioning, Swiss architecture Le Corbusier—“the home should be a habitation machine,” since beauty is intrinsic to man. The “good [modern] home” should, therefore, bring together functionality and beauty. While recognizing the importance of Ukrainian-born architect Gregori Warchavchik to modern Brazilian architecture, de Andrade credits Lúcio Costa with enacting the fundaments of the modern school in the country. The author suggests that experimentalism must be avoided in architecture since it tends to lead to “economic wastefulness.” He praises the book Brazil Builds, published by MoMA (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1943) for demonstrating that the quality of Brazilian architecture is as high as North American and European architecture. The exhibition that occasioned that publication served to attenuate the inferiority complex suffered by Brazilian mestizos.

The show Brazil Builds held at the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1943 sparked an enthusiastic response on the part of Mário de Andrade. The catalogue featured a text by Philip Goodwin and photographs by Kidder Smith. The show later traveled to a number of Brazilian cities. Both that show and the lauded Brazilian pavilion at the World’s Fair in New York in 1939 began to communicate the value of modern Brazilian architecture beyond the country’s borders. De Andrade uses the word “miscegenation” to describe the racial melting pot that gave shape to the Brazilian people. 

[For further reading, see in the ICAA digital archive the following texts by Mário de Andrade: “Prefácio interessantíssimo” (doc. no. 781273), “Amerique Latine” (doc. no. 807815), (untitled) [“Anita Malfatti é uma colorista...”] (doc. no. 1085102), “Assim falou o papa do futurismo: como Mário de Andrade defina a escola que chefia” (doc. no. 784366), “Carta aberta a Alberto de Oliveira” (doc. no. 784258), “Catálogo da exposição promovida pelo Ministério da Educação” (doc. no. 783296), “Decadencia da influencia franceza no Brasil” (doc. no. 1110806), “Do desenho” (doc. no. 1111411), “Esta paulista familia” (doc. no. 780722), “França: feuilles de route” (doc. no. 780937), “Fujita” (doc. no. 1110645), “O homem que se achou” (doc. no. 1110926), “Hugo Adami” (doc. no. 783916), “Ismael Nery: excertos de textos” (doc. no. 1110382), “Mangue” (doc. no. 1110480), “O movimento modernista” (doc. no. 781117), “Phantasias de um poeta” (doc. no. 781216), “Pintura em Minas” (doc. no. 1110459), “Primitivos” (doc. no. 781294), “O Salão” (doc. no. 784285), and “Serviço do Patrimônio Histórico e Artistico Nacional” (doc. no. 781826)].