Paulo Tavares is an architect who lives in Brasília, where he is a professor at the Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo, University of Brasília. His work has been featured in various exhibitions and publications worldwide, including Harvard Design Magazine, the Oslo Architecture Triennale, the Istanbul Design Biennial, and the 32nd São Paulo Biennial – Living Uncertainty.
Tavares’s design and pedagogic practice spans different territories, social geographies, and media. He taught spatial and visual cultures at the School of Architecture, Design, and Arts at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Ecuador in Quito, and prior to that led the MA program at the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he also completed his PhD. In 2017 he created the agency autonoma, a platform dedicated to spatial research and intervention. Tavares is a long-term collaborator of Forensic Architecture and he was recently a fellow at the Canadian Centre for Architecture.
Tavares was co-curator of the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennale (USA) and is currently a member of the curating board of the second edition of the Sharjah Architecture Triennale 2023 (UAE). He has been curator of the projects Acts of Repair (Preston Thomas Memorial Symposium, Cornell University (USA), and Climate Emergency > Emergence, at the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT) in Lisbon (Portugal). Tavares He is the author of several texts and books that question the colonial legacies of modernity, including Ley Forestal/Selva Jurídica (2014), Des-Habitat (2019), Memória da terra (2019), Was Lucio Costa racista? (2020) and Non-human rights (2022).
Tavares’s design and pedagogic practice spans different territories, social geographies, and media. He taught spatial and visual cultures at the School of Architecture, Design, and Arts at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Ecuador in Quito, and prior to that led the MA program at the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he also completed his PhD. In 2017 he created the agency autonoma, a platform dedicated to spatial research and intervention. Tavares is a long-term collaborator of Forensic Architecture and he was recently a fellow at the Canadian Centre for Architecture.
Tavares was co-curator of the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennale (USA) and is currently a member of the curating board of the second edition of the Sharjah Architecture Triennale 2023 (UAE). He has been curator of the projects Acts of Repair (Preston Thomas Memorial Symposium, Cornell University (USA), and Climate Emergency > Emergence, at the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT) in Lisbon (Portugal). Tavares He is the author of several texts and books that question the colonial legacies of modernity, including Ley Forestal/Selva Jurídica (2014), Des-Habitat (2019), Memória da terra (2019), Was Lucio Costa racista? (2020) and Non-human rights (2022).
![Brazil pavilion, Terra [Earth]. Photograph by Matteo de Mayda. Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia](/sites/default/files/styles/card_article_image_big/public/lead-images/metalocus_brazil-pavilion-earth_venice-architecture-biennale-2023_18_2p.webp?itok=9qBHW9hw "Brazil pavilion, Terra [Earth]. Photograph by Matteo de Mayda. Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia")
