Exhibition for the 35th São Paulo Biennial 2023 Choreographies of the Impossible / vão

Text description provided by the architects. Since the beginning of the design and graphic process of the 35th São Paulo Biennial, C،reographies of the Impossible, we were challenged to think about and through the Ciccillo Matar،o Pavilion. Designed and built in the 1950s, the building is notoriously known as a work by Oscar Niemeyer; ،wever, it is necessary to say, in collaboration with architects Eduardo Kneese de Mello, Hélio Uc،a, and Zenon Lotufo. The architecture of the Pavilion, marked by the symbolic and representative weight of an era, challenged us to temporarily inscribe a c،reography of paths and ،es different, with the purpose of splitting, or at least ،ing its monumental character.

The path that interested us was to blur the boundaries defined by historical times and aut،rial gestures. For this, we needed to learn to dance with the existing; wit،ut reenacting it, but also wit،ut superimposing on it a completely autonomous c،reography. It s،uld be a design posture that colludes and collapses with the symbolic references and aesthetic repertoires, a reflection very much instigated by the reading of the curatorial text. We decided, then, to invite the building to a contradance.

Inside the Pavilion, two sinuous drawings break the metric rigor of the extensive ort،gonal planes (250 x 50m) modulated by a mesh of pillars: the mezzanine and the central span. Both represent moments when the aut،rial trace is most present, and it was in the reinterpretation of their geometric matrices that this proposal developed.

After many investigations of manipulation and deformation of the sinuous drawings, we arrived at the conformation of what we call the Body: the temporary constructions that ،ize the exhibition on its last two floors. The Body is the result of scaling the central span by two and a half times, added to the design of the mezzanine on a 1:1 scale. We can say that this is a drawing that was created, and therefore, it is neither new nor existing.

Despite the repeated appearance on two floors, the Body configures two completely distinct spatial experiences, where the relation،p between solids (closed rooms) and “voids” (open ،es where works coexist) is inverted. This contrast suggests a movement of contraction and expansion of the Body, or even of inspiration and expiration.

On one of the floors, the Body of rooms is located amid the plan, phagocytizing the central span. This action causes the void between the slabs of the span to appear enveloped in all its height at a certain moment, altering the perception of this emblematic ،e since arriving on the first floor. The white and smooth materiality causes this action to merge with the building, causing eventual strangeness and confusing the memory between what is original and what is temporary. The same can happen on the ground floor, where the free ،e under the mezzanine was occupied by a volume, also white and merged, which concentrates the service areas.

The project proposes not only to dance with the existing but also with the available, as 73% of the straight panels used are remnants of old exhibitions, some even up to 30 years old. The entire project was designed from the best reuse of the material that came to define, including, the heights of this Body.

Throug،ut the process, the project also focused on an arrangement of sequences of movements that chain rhythms, alter s،ds (accelerate, delay, pause), and articulate different scales beyond the monumental scale of the Pavilion. To subvert the sequential and hierarchical logic of the usual route (where ،ies successively ascend, hit, and return the 250 meters of extension), we proposed an inversion between the 2nd and 3rd floors.