Three times Modern: three projects, three different spheres, and scales; three different stories.

Abstract

This work focuses on three different works in São Paulo city: Casa de Vidro (Lina Bo Bardi, 1950-51), Prudência apartment (Andrade Morettin, 2001-02), and SESC 24 de Maio (Paulo Mendes da Rocha, 2000-17), an extraordinaryprivate house, a recent renovation of an apartment from the 1950s, and the transformation of a commercial building into a cultural and leisure center, all in São Paulo, Brazil. The text is about these projects, buildings and their interiors, the transformations they have gone through - or not - along with their natural aging process, and the actions that the specialized organs and the society have taken - or not - concerning these modifications. This observation makes possible, more than definite conclusions, to raise some critical issues for debate, such as the differences in the preservation and renovation of interiors and buildings, public or private, small or big ones, and the challenges to protect something alive and changeable like buildings and their interiors. Also, the difficulty of understanding interiors as an active part of the heritage to be preserved, as an integral part of the architectural design, and differences between maintenance and renovation design practices.