Bauhaus inflections in São Paulo by Leonardo Finotti

Leonardo Finotti, was born in Uberlândia mg, Brazil in 1977. In 2001 in his hometown obtained a degree in architecture at UFU. While studying architecture he started to be interested in photography under the tutelage of Thomaz Harrell in 1997 and as a visiting student of the fine-arts in 2000, presented a final thesis named Cromofotografopolis. Impercepções was his first relevant authorial work and the opportunity to make some exhibitions in Brazil between 2001 and 2002.

In 2002, was selected to XIX Abril Trainee Program in journalism in São Paulo and then for a trial in Fabrica, Treviso, Italy. After the 8th Venice Architectural Biennale, where the landscape studio Proap (João Nunes and Carlos Ribas) was selected to represent Portugal in the exhibition, Leonardo had the chance of start photographing their work and thanks to this opportunity he decided to focus on architectural photography, then moved to Portugal.

In 2003-2004 had another great opportunity, Joy the Kolleg Transitspaces between Berlin and Moscow in the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, Germany. In the end of 2004, shot Paulo David´s Casa das Mudas Arts Center in Madeira to compete in the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture Mies van der Rohe Award, shortlisted. By then, he was already shooting important projects by selected portuguese architects, such as João Gomes da Silva, Inês Lobo, Ricardo Bak Gordon, João Favila, Carrilho da Graça, Souto de Moura, Aires Mateus among others.

In the end of 2005, shot the construction site of Iberê Camargo Foundation in Porto Alegre, Brazil, by Álvaro Siza commissioned by the architect, published worldwide in the main architectural publications, besides being its first commissioned work in his homeland. After that, he started a close collaboration with important brazilian architects like Mendes da Rocha, Marcos Acayaba, Isay Weinfeld, Thiago Bernardes / Paulo Jacobsen, Gustavo Penna among others.

In 2007, during Oscar Niemeyer centenary, challenged yourself into an ambitious project: 100 years, 100 photos, 100 works, started with the obvious idea of shooting the 100 most representative works of the brazilian master and ended with the most significant contemporary photography archive on Niemeyer with around 200 buildings shot around the world. By then, the solitary photography work became a team work when Guilherme Francisco Lopes coordinated a small team to retouch the photos while Alex Souza became our official editor.

In the beginning of 2008, while inaugurating an amazing photography exhibition at electricity museum on Niemeyer´s work in Lisbon curated by Michelle Jean de Castro and designed by Ruben Dias, Leonardo set his base in São Paulo. By the end of the year, Gustavo Hiriart, architect and professor at university of Uruguay, joined their team. By their need to have some of their work online plus a previous experience on a blog, Gustavo proposed, leonardofinotti.blogspot.com. started as an online portfolio and a method as compiling and organizing our work, our blog rapidly became an editorial platform with one post per day in last 3 years, where the projects where organized every week by a different thematic.

In 2009, their blog achieved their personally and they had constantly adding and producing content in 2 directions, their commissioned work and authorial projects where modern and contemporary architecture is the baseline. They created a work system called triangle where architects, publishers and their studio has its own edge. Very transparent, efficient and independent, this network potentialize this cooperative chain, where architects concentrate to provide its best graphic and concepts, our studio accurate photographs and the editor has better conditions on making good contents.

In 2010, they decided on creating their website developed by Nu Design and they are very happy to share all our work.

In 2011, Nelson Ferreira joined their team in the financial matters in order to help our collaborative dreams come through!