Welcome to the Glass Age

95 most important art collections in Latin America with a pioneering educational program that weaved the arts with other disciplines in the style of the Bauhaus. His knowledge and understanding of architecture had been acquired in his years as journalist in Italy, Bardi was an active member of modernist circles and exchanged letters to Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Richard Neutra. Italy at the time was under the fascist regime that came into power in 1922 and modernism was in a delicate situation, if it enjoyed state sponsorship, it was also being persecuted by opposing factions. As there was no official- promoted art, exhibitions and building commissions were disputed to gain favor with the state. While Giuseppe Terragni was working in his Casa del fascio de Como that became one of the icons of Italian Modernism and of glass architecture, Marcelo Piacentini consolidated through politics his position as leading architect with neoclassicism as the core architecture movement. The dispute over modernism and neoclassicism would extend even further than Italy. Brazil had open relations with Fascist Italy due the populist dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas. If Bardi went to Brazil before the war to promote modernism to the Americas, Piacentini came to São Paulo on a diplomatic mission invited by the Italo-Brazilian industrialist Matarazzo family 2 . Later political changes, such as a surprising pro-USA stance of Vargas in the event of the Second World War, would lead the Matarazzo to a pro-modernist stance with the sponsorship of the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo in 1948 at the same building of MASP at Rua 7 de Abril , and later to its location at Ibirapuera Park designed by Oscar Niemeyer. During the years 1938-1943 [1], in what can be interpreted as one of Bardi’s last contributions to Italian critics before immigrating to Brazil, he worked in the magazine Il Vetro (Figure 6.3); but, he was forbidden by the regime to sign his text and his name wasn’t listed on the credits. Il Vetro was, as the italian name implies, a magazine around themes and uses of glass. In his contribution, Bardi wrote not only about technical uses of glass, but also wrote about glass architecture. Italian fascism had tried to incorporate in its rhetoric glass as a metaphor for the State, a metaphor which Terragni heavily leaned on as the new foundation of Italian architecture, 2. Piacentini designed for the Matarazzo family their corporate headquarters in Vale do Anhangabaú and their mansion at Avenida Paulista. The corporate headquarters was later acquired by the state and since 2004 is São Paulo’s town hall. The mansion at Avenida Paulista was demolished to give place to a shopping mall. Figure 6.1. Lina Bo Bardi’s Casa de Vidro. Source: Nelson Kon.