DAY 26 (1 OF 4) – MASP, SAO PAULO, BRAZIL

Museu Arte Sao Paulo (MASP) at the famous Av. Paulista was the second architectural project by Lina Bo Bardi we visited in the city. Inaugurated in 1968, MASP building was a revolutionary project at the time of its completion. From the street, MASP appears like a huge concrete and glass box suspended by four pillars and two prestressed concrete beams, leaving the ground level below the box completely open. Except the ticket office and a vertical circulation core, the ground level serves as a unique public plaza, linking the street to a lookout platform at the back. Among the skyscrapers of Av. Paulista, the openness of the museum plaza offers a unique space for public gathering and hippies selling jewelries.
The glass elevator brought us to the exhibition gallery at the top level. In Bo Bardi’s original design, each level of the museum would serve as a single exhibition gallery, with artwork displayed without the use of partitions. Over the years, this concept proved to be too challenging for curators and exhibit designers. Today, temporary partitions are used for displaying artworks and controlling visitor’s circulation. During our visit, we saw four shows on display: the museum’s permanent collection, a retrospective show of artist Lucian Freud, a photography biennale, and an exhibition as part of the X Architectural Biennale Sao Paulo.