This is a promotional pamphlet for the course on Industrial Design at the IAC (Instituto de Arte Contemporânea) at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo. It offers information on the first and second years of study, optional courses, and the professors assigned to teach each course. It presents the ideals of the school, and it states that its objective is to prepare students for the social practice of an industrial design that seeks to create objects and tools appropriate for a “progressive spirit” and “contemporary tastes.” It affirms that the IAC works to unify diverse aesthetic manifestations of modern life through the collaboration of appropriate industries so that new proposals of form may be adopted.

The Instituto de Arte Contemporânea (IAC) was housed in the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) (1951–53), and was one of the first initiatives to systematize education in modern industrial design in Brazil. It offered a course on the history and contemporary state of culture in the city of São Paulo, which at that time was exerting its influence on industry. The curriculum was created by Pietro Maria Bardi (the director of the museum) and architect Lina Bo Bardi, both founders and coordinators of the IAC, where they also taught courses that defended modern tastes and processes that were compatible with the machine age; ideals that were also upheld by HABITAT magazine, a publication of the MASP. The pamphlet most likely dates from 1950, when registration (for courses) first began. The IAC’s students who went to become names in Brazilian design include Alexandre Wollner, Maurício Nogueira Lima, Antônio Maluf, Estella Adonis and Emilie Chamie. From its founding in 1947, the MASP sought to create a local public that was receptive to modern art, offering a broad educational program with shows on the history of art, conferences, courses, and exhibitions by artists such as Le Corbusier, Alexander Calder, Max Bill, and Paul Klee.