In this article, the architect Lina Bo Bardi describes the ten years it took to design and build the MASP (Museu de Arte de São Paulo) on the Avenida Paulista in São Paulo. She mentions her first visits to the site in 1957, the political environment at that time, the interruptions and subsequent fresh starts, and the challenging task of suspending the daring structure within the building supports. Bo Bardi discusses contemporary sociopolitical details, and describes the floor plan, the geometrical calculations, the technical and construction challenges, and the symbolic values involved in the museum design. She explains her decision to “reintroduce certain ideas” in an attempt to recreate “another Trianon”—referring to the neoclassical building that housed the first São Paulo Biennial in 1951. When she speaks of the “monumental scale” of the future MASP, Bo Bardi is referring to the idea of “group awareness,” in which the “rationality” arises within the structure as it confronts its own architectural reality, her project and the envisioned building. In her opinion, “architecture involves a logic of positions; it is very different from idealistic culture because its positions are essentially concerned with content.”

The MASP was founded as an institution in 1947. Its business advisor was Assis Chateaubriand, and no one was better placed to run it than a couple of intellectuals who had recently left postwar Italy in search of new cultural horizons: the businessman Pietro Maria Bardi (1900–99) and his wife, the architect Lina Bo Bardi (née Achillina Bo, 1914−92). In the early 1950s, Bo Bardi was in charge of Habitat, the MASP publication. The following year, in 1951, Bo Bardi and her husband started the industrial design course at the Contemporary Art Institute, IAC (Instituto de Arte Contemporânea), where she also worked as a teacher [see doc. no. 1086940]. 

The architect Lina Bo Bardi designed the new premises for the MASP on the main thoroughfare in the city of São Paulo. It opened in 1968, and was a bold undertaking in terms of scale and technology, built with reinforced concrete. The simplicity of the finish and materials of the building make it look like “an enormous suspended box” in an open space that measures over seventy meters long. It is a public space, endowed with great visibility and a design that allows the viewer to enjoy great freedom, both inside and outside the structure. This freedom can accommodate whatever activity the institution cares to organize. The strong opposition to the project—from the Fundación Bienal and the FAAP art school—showed just how upset the conservative community of São Paulo originally was with Bo Bardi’s design. For additional information, see Pietro Maria Bardi’s remarks on the matter in “20 anos do Museu de Arte de São Paulo” [doc. no. 1111187].