People theater. Teatro Oficina by Lina Bo Bardi

Her buildings are always extraordinarily "vibrant", they generate a very close relationship with the user, always causing an interaction with the visitor-user, generating a particular sensorial experience, becoming triggers of social and cultural actions thanks to their architecture, which becomes a key player in the development of modernity in Brazil since the mid-twentieth century. Her work was not initially widely publicized. Until a couple of decades ago, in which a slow spread began first in Brazil and quickly in Europe, producing a series of exhibitions that began to value a production which, to many, had been underestimated for too long.

 
Lina Bo Bardi was born in Rome, Italy, in 1914, with the name of Achillina. She was the eldest of the two daughters of Giovana and Enrico Bo. In 1933 he graduated at the Mamiani Artistic Lyceum, the same that would open the doors for her to study architecture at the University of Rome La Sapienza, from where she graduated as an architect in 1939.

She moved to Milan in 1940, where she founded an architecture firm with Carlo Pagani under the name of "Studio Bo e Pagani". It was a time conditioned by the Second World War, which limited her work and caused her activity to focus on newspapers and magazines (Stile, Grazia, Belleza, Tempo, Vetrina and Illustrazione). She worked for Giò Ponti (Domus) and collaborated in several interior design commissions widely covered in multiple publications.

In 1945 she founded and directed Quaderni di Domus and alongside Raffaele Carrieri and with the support of Bruno Zevi developed the weekly architectural project A - Attualità, Architettura, Abitazione. A year later she married Pietro María Bardi, a well-known journalist and art critic, adopting his surname.

Due to the existing political pressure in post-war Italy, they decided to move to Brazil, where Pietro had contacts that would enable them to develop artistic projects.

Her first contact was with the IAB (Institute of Brazilian Architects), managing to integrate quickly into Brazil, a country that caused a profound effect on her creative potential.

In 1947 Pietro was commissioned to direct the Art Museum of São Paulo. He proposed its creation in an existing building and managed to appoint Lina as designer of the necessary reforms to transform it into a museum (1957), achieving one of her most representative works.

In 1948 she partnered with architect Giancarlo Palantini and formed the studio "d'Arte Palma". They were dedicated to the design of furniture and relevant designs, being the "bowl chair" of 1952, the best known and most commercialized.

In 1951 she built her residence, "the glass house" which would also be her first architectural work in Brazil, in the Morumbi neighborhood of São Paulo.

In 1955, she began teaching at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of São Paulo, and at the Federal University of Bahia, an activity she combined with the foundation, direction and design of the restoration of the Museum of Modern Art building in Bahia, Solar do Unhão, the construction of which lasted until 1963.

The subsequent period was full of projects: writing publications and lectures, designing stages and costumes for theatrical works, organizing and curating exhibitions, restorations, home designs, urban recovery projects, and even participating in the recovery plan of the historical center of Salvador. Her latest project was the new headquarters
of the City Hall of São Paulo. In 1991 she received the Latin American Prize at the IV Architecture Biennial of Buenos Aires.

She died on March 20, 1992 at age 77, leaving an extraordinary artistic legacy, which is reflected in each of her works.

TEATRO OFICINA

One of her most interesting projects in terms of the recycling of buildings, is the "Teatro Oficina".

The project comes after working closely for several years in the creation of different stages with José Celso Martínez Correa, director and founder of the theater company Uzyna Uzona. In 1984 she was commissioned to design a theater in an abandoned building in São Paulo. The architect Edson Elito would also collaborate in the project.

The original building had been built in the 1920s, and had mainly been used as office space; in 1966 it suffered a fire and was abandoned for almost two decades, until it received a new function in the 90s, generating a space for the artistic collectives in the area.

The idea of ​​the theater arises from the work developed by Bo Bardi for the play "Na selva das ciudades", where she manages to hybridize the anthropization of the urban space of the city and the natural spaces of the nearby tropical jungle. The project is a fortunate attempt to bring the public space of "the street" inside the building.

Based on the cultural manifestations that archetypically use the street (carnivals), they decide to base the conception on that image, arguing that the theater must also be lived in that way, thus generating a space for artistic experimentation that links the urban with the natural, and the old building with its new use.
Bo Bardi decides to preserve the footprint of the site maintaining the perimeter walls of exposed brick, completely emptying the interior, and preserving the original volume, a rectangular prism (50m long by 9m wide). The project takes advantage of this narrow and elongated space, which becomes ideal to simulate a long street, where the main traffic is marked by a small wooden walkway 1.5m wide that runs longitudinally throughout the building. A tubular steel structure, removable and mobile, painted deep blue is placed on the sides, which becomes the supporting element of the grandstands, leaving a very reduced stage width, thus achieving greater interaction between the artists and the spectators.
 
The layout of the grandstands allows the viewer to have different points of view towards the stage, and as there are no barriers between the spaces, these can be used by the actors, the public and even as dressing rooms.

Two large openings allow to relate with the outside: the mobile cover formed by a mechanical system, the same that allows it to open and let the sun rays pass, providing better ventilation on hot days; and a large side glass wall accompanied by vegetation that is consolidated as a backdrop, allowing not only a visual connection with the exterior but also the integration with the surrounding nature.
 
The project moves away from the concept of theater and adapts to a public space designed especially for people, taking the concept of street and transforming it into a stage, allowing itself to be invaded by the outside; a place where people can express themselves freely without divisions or curtains, generating a deep bond between the actor and the audience, a dynamic theater where everyone actively participates in the experience, a true space for interaction, in the words of Olivia de Oliveira.

The original strategy includes the expansion of the project with the proposal of a public square, located on the side of the building, which would cross to the other side of the street forming a single green and continuous space, currently this extension was commissioned to the architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha, and it is expected that the whole will be finished in the near future.

The project was initially criticized for not responding to the traditional standards of theater spaces; but Bo Bardi defended her design arguing that the idea was to integrate: space, activity and users, thus allowing the dissemination of art in a different way. Nowadays, it is a space widely used by experimental artists.

The Teatro Oficina is one of the many projects developed by Bo Bardi that serve as an example to propose not only a good reuse of the buildings, giving them a new architectural value, but above all generating a space for social interaction where the artistic-cultural manifestations of its users are the protagonists.