This is not a [bed]room

Abstract

One of the commitments of modern architecture was to transform home living. Spaces were to be reviewed through new notions on use, fluidity, and transparency, often leading to formerly compartmentalized areas occupied by bulky furniture and pre-arranged compositions being opened up. In this way, some architects started experimenting with new arrangements, not only for single-family housing, but also in new apartment building configurations. This article, therefore, takes a perspective on two different but complementary home living experiments, by comparing Gio Ponti's Via Dezza apartment (Milan, Italy) and Paulo Mendes da Rocha's Butantã house (São Paulo, Brazil). Even though they come from different backgrounds and time periods, these works are similar in some of their fundamental principles, especially regarding the way they conceive the room. While designing their own home environments, these architects were able to freely express the essence of their ideas about home living. In both cases though, issues believed to be undeniable, such as privacy and intimacy, were treated in a very authorial way, sharing in common a particular way of interpreting the notion of the room.

Keywords:

• Modern interiors
• interior design history
• modern movement
• criticism

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq) and the Gio Ponti Archives for their valuable support to this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In the book “La dissolucion de la estancia”, Jose Morales compares Gio Ponti’s modern living design proposals with those of Coderch, presenting alternative points of view. Morales, J. (2005), p.84-109.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marta Silveira Peixoto

Marta Silveira Peixoto has been Professor of Architecture at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, Brazil, since 1994, where she also completed her Architecture degree in 1985. She has a Master of Arts in Theory, History and Criticism in Architecture (1994), and holds the title of Doctor in the Theory, History and Criticism of Architecture (2006), both from the PROPAR (Program of Research and Post-Graduate Studies in Architecture), at UFRGS, in Brazil, which included a period of research at the Escola Tècnica Superior d' Arquitectura de Barcelona, on a grant from CAPES in Brazil. She was selected as a level 2 researcher at CNPq – the federal agency that supports academic research in Brazil -, and she is also a member of the Interior Design Committee of Docomomo International and has coordinated PROPAR since 2019. Her research fields include the Theory and History of Modern Interiors, Modern Domestic Architecture, and the Reuse of Modern Buildings. Email: [email protected].

Angelica Paiva Ponzio

Angelica Paiva Ponzio has been a Professor of Architecture at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil, since 1994, where she also completed her Architecture degree in 1989. She has a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design from GSAPP, Columbia University, New York (1991) and holds the title of Doctor in Theory, History and Criticism in Architecture, at the Program of Research and Post-Graduate Studies in Architecture – PROPAR, UFRGS, Brazil (2013), which included a period of research at the Politecnico di Milano (INDACO, 2009) on a grant from CAPES in Brazil. She is also an expert on Gio Ponti’s design work; having been published in the Journal of Design History (Oxford University Press) she was also an invited author for Ponti’s retrospective exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, in Paris in 2018 and at the Maxxi Museum, Rome, 2019/20. Her research fields include the Theory and History of Modern and Contemporary Interiors, and Creative Digital and Analogue Methods envisioning Innovation in the Architectural Design process. Email: [email protected].