Casa Arnstein 1939-41
The entanglement of architecture and nature in Bernard Rudofsky's patio house in São Paulo
This is a documentary research involving the analysis of the project for Casa Arnstein, a villa designed by the émigré architect Bernard Rudofsky in São Paulo between 1938 and 1941.The architect was forced to flee Europe and the anti-Semitic aggressions when Austria was annexed into Nazi Germany (Anschluss) in 1938. Arriving in Brazil, he found a blossoming city where he was able to apply his knowledge in the fields of architecture and design.
This thesis formed around my attempts to reconstruct the space of the villa while only passing through the patios which made the house so known. I had a very particular insight into Rudofsky’s architecture, his attempts to entangle architecture with nature, but also into the transformation of the villa since the beginning of its construction in 1939 until today.
While combining and processing the different types of materials, written and visual, the aim was to analyse the Arnstein house as a case study that would help to assess his contribution to architecture in Brazil and to international modernism. In this thesis and in the accompanying film I was also interested in the history of the house, its different owners, the context of the city and the time in which it was built. I made use of some of the architect’s own publications and notes as a reference to understand his work while looking at my rather spontaneous recordings of the place. The aim of my film was to portray the building as a historical document.
Honorable Mention for the Bauhaus Essentials 2016
"Casa Arnstein 1939-41" on YouTube
CDA – Documents of Forgotten Architectures
Tutors: Prof. Ines Weizman, Wolfram Höhne
Script and editing: Ana Paula Nitzsche
Camera: Ana Paula Nitzsche, J. Lerdon
Images: Bernard Rudofsky, 1951 - Berta Rudofsky, New York / P. C. Scheier, ca. 1941 Peter C. Scheier, São Paulo / B.Rudofsky, ca. 1943 - Research Library, The Getty Institute, Los Angeles / G. E. Kidder Smith, 1943 - Research Library, The Getty Institute, Los Angeles / B.Rudofsky, ca.1941 - Source: Rudofsky, Bernard. "Three Patios Houses", 1943
