Flavio de Carvalho

Painter, architect, writer, theatre director, designer, sculptor, engineer (1899-1973) - Brazil
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Flávio de Carvalho was one of the main artists of the Brazilian modern movement. Deemed by Le Corbusier as a "romantic revolutionary", Flávio de Carvalho was a man of many skills who got involved in an innovative and provocative way in artistic fields as different as painting, architecture, scenography, writing, theatre, design or sculpture. He often was compared to an eternal "enfant terrible". His inexhaustible energy, his thirst for knowledge, his refined education, his culture and technical abilities combined with a great talent to understand art, contributed to shape this man considered as one of the great names of the Brazilian intellectual backgrounds. Misunderstood in his time, he is recognized today as a visionary who bequeathed us a rich and eclectic work. His paintings in particular are parts of the collections of the world most important museums of modern art.

Flávio de Cravalho is regarded as one of the Brazilian modern architecture precursors. After studies in France at the Janson de Sailly high school, then in England at the University of Durham where he completed civil engineer degree, he returned in his country in 1927. He then takes part in a contest for the construction of the Governor’s mansion in São Paulo. His project, extensively debated and not adopted because of its avant-gardist aspects, was noteworthy by the monumental aspect of the building characterized by the decomposition of volumes and the dramatic intensity of the play of lights produced by spotlights in the sky. In 1930, he plays part in the Pan-American Congress of Architects and holds a memorable lecture entitled "the City of the Naked Man" based on Oswald de Andrade’s theory of “cannibalism”. Later he entered various other contests of architecture. Two of his main projects grew : the houses complex of the Alameda Lorena street in São Paulo (1936-1938) and the Capuava ranch (1939), both precursors of the modern architecture in Brazil. The Capuava ranch farmhouse synthesizes perfectly his architectural ideas, moved principally by the imagination and corresponding to the new forms of living and thinking. Interior design is as important as architecture. The frontage is a high trapezoid reminding a mausoleum, with inside a vast living room without dividing wall, curtains made of colored fabrics dancing in the wind, and a fireplace which lets escape a colored smoke. The bathrooms and the kitchen are paneled with aluminum plates, an extremely modern material at that time. He designs the most part of the furniture, among them the famous FDC armchair.