Architecture and design by Zanine Caldas are reviewed in book and exhibition

Master of wood, visionary and multidisciplinary creator, pioneer of sustainable thinking, José Zanine Caldas was one of the country's greatest architects and designers of all time and a notable personality in 20th century Brazilian culture, with his critical and entrepreneurial stance and incredible aesthetic inventiveness. Published by Editora Olhares in partnership with the American gallery R&Company to celebrate Zanine 's centenary, the book reviews his career based on research and text by three authors: Maria Cecilia Loschiavo dos Santos, full professor of design at FAU/USP, Lauro Cavalcanti , architecture critic and director of Casa Roberto Marinho, and Amanda Beatriz Palma de Carvalho, researcher of Zanine 's work. The publication brings together more than 300 historical and current images, with a highlight on an essay by architectural photographer André Nazareth. And the commemorative exhibition entitled “Zanine 100 years – Form and Resistance” takes place at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro and runs until November 17. Curator Tulio Mariante brought together 18 pieces made of solid wood, discarded wood, between the late 1960s and 1980s. Most of the works were produced by Zanine in Bahia, and by the region's canoe masters.

Life and Work Born in Belmonte, on the southern coast of Bahia, Zanine began his professional life as a model maker for the most important modern architects in Brazil in the 1940s. Some time later, he himself became an exponent of national architecture, with a very particular reading of modern and with wood and artisanal knowledge as protagonists. In furniture design, he led the experience of Móveis Z, founded in the late 1940s, betting on industrialization to support – and take advantage of – the spread of a new lifestyle brought by the winds of modernity. In the 1950s, he was a landscaper and had a shop selling vases and flower arrangements on Paulista Avenue. At the end of the decade he moved to Brasília to produce on-site models of the buildings of the new capital under construction. He was a model-making teacher at UnB (as well as at USP), despite being self-taught. , and invented the dried flowers of the cerrado, still today one of the most traditional souvenirs of the capital. In the 1970s, he lived between Rio de Janeiro, where he practically invented the celebrated neighborhood of Joatinga, and Nova Viçosa, in the south of Bahia, where of developing pre-designed structures for their projects, which were assembled and disassembled before traveling hundreds of kilometers to be fixed. And it was in this same city in Bahia that the “denunciation furniture” was produced, a line of heavy, sculptural furniture that used wood discarded during the devastation of the Atlantic Forest that was taking place in the region.

Book launch October 3rd - 6:30 PM Etel Store Al. Gabriel Monteiro da Silva 1334 Publication: Editora Olhares and R & Company Gallery (NY) Authors: Amanda Beatriz de Palma Carvalho, Lauro Cavalcanti, Maria Cecilia Loschiavo dos Santos. Photo essay by André Nazareth Exhibition: “Zanine 100 years – Form and Resistance” Curated by: Tulio Mariante Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro Until November 17th