Welcome to the Glass Age

93 T 6. Reflections on Reflection: Glass in Architecture S ol C amacho o speak about glass in architecture is to speak about the history of architecture of the past two hundred years, and that is a daunting task for an architect who has merely been studying this for a few years. I arrived at this subject almost randomly. My research on the subject grew as a derivative of my interest in the life and work of the Italo-Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi (1914-1992), who pioneered in the use of the material with two of her most iconic buildings, her own house in Morumbi —today known as the Casa de Vidro (1951) (Figure 6.1) and the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (1968), also known as MASP (Figure 6.2). I arrived to live in São Paulo in 2011 and these two canonic examples of Brazilian Architecture were my introduction to the city; by studying about them I was able to connect with people and the history of the fascinating South American metropolis. These buildings condense the life and work of Lina —as she is locally known— and Pietro Maria Bardi (1900-1999), her husband, journalist and art critic founder of the MASP. The couple arrived in 1946 from a torn-down Italy to a promising Rio de Janeiro and soon met Assis Chateaubriand (1892-1968), a media mogul 1 who commissioned Bardi to found and direct an art museum in São Paulo in 1947, first inside the office building of Diários Associados on Rua 7 de Abril . With his critical eye and knowledge of European Art, Bardi built during the years one of the largest and 1. Assis Chateaubriand owned and directed the media conglomerate Diários Associados and was a pioneer entrepreneur with the TV Tupi, the first TV in Brazil.