Advisor: Otavio Leonidio
Dissertation: Eros and the house: Political speculations of pleasure and seduction at Casa das Canoas
Defense date: 15/07/2021
Abstract
This dissertation proposes to open a speculative path of imagination about the modern
architecture of Casa das Canoas (1951-1953), by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer
(1907-2012), having some events as an anchor. Different from a traditional architectural
project analysis, this research is developed from its relations, male affections, the
construction of a modern body, its vision of sexuality and its gender fetish. In this sense,
not only architecture but the media through it was manifested – drawings, photography,
sculpture, landscaping or publishing – demonstrate the projective framework of modern
human behavior and the construction of society at the time. These media have a
fundamental role in forming a modern imagination built according to pleasure and desire.
This research invites you to reflect on these statutes and consider objects as constructed
bodies, as well as to reflect on the norms that govern bodies and discourses according to
male behaviors and cultural codes. I start from the consideration that modern architectural
practice was dominated by patriarchal thinking and, consequently, designed spaces were
imagined from male fantasies. In this process, a critical narrative of the violence of this
imaginary is present in part of modern Brazilian architecture and perpetuated until today.