Sérgio Bernardes was a star of 60s Brazil, a brilliant architect and a mesmerising man. And then almost forgotten. His grandson has made a film to discover what happened.
In the film he is more than once called “extreme”, and among other things he took to extremes the dilemmas architects face, such as the extent to which they can be creatively and politically free, or have to be complicit with the power and money for which they work. Also the necessity to be optimistic while also driven by an artist’s perpetual dissatisfaction. He sometimes resembles a less astute Rem Koolhaas, who also made an accommodation with tyranny in his TV headquarters in Beijing, and installed a giant balloon on his Serpentine pavilion.
