Founded in 2022 by art advisor Filipe Assis, ABERTO is an exhibition platform celebrating the convergence of art, design, and architecture in Brazil and beyond. Staging exhibitions in private and public modernist spaces, its past editions have highlighted the global connections forged by Brazilians from the 20th century onwards. Following three exhibitions in São Paulo, "ABERTO 4 – Brazil After Le Corbusier" marks its first international edition, taking place at Le Corbusier's Maison La Roche in Paris, from 14 May to 8 June 2025. The exhibition presents around 35 design and art pieces by Brazilian artists, spotlighting Le Corbusier's seminal connection to Brazilian modernist architecture and exploring his influence on contemporary Brazilian creatives. Previous editions of ABERTO have featured over 100 artists from Brazil and abroad in houses designed by Oscar Niemeyer (2022), Vilanova Artigas (2023), and Ruy Ohtake and Chu Ming Silveira (2024).
This edition launches ABERTO's biannual international exhibition program. The first international venue of this cycle, Maison La Roche, was designed and built between 1923 and 1925 by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret for Raoul La Roche, a banker and modern art collector. The house, a key example of the architects' 1927 Five Points of a New Architecture, is divided into a gallery that displayed La Roche's art collection and his private apartments. Together with Maison Jeanneret, the house was designated a historic monument in 1996 and, since 2016, has been part of UNESCO's World Heritage List alongside 16 other works by Le Corbusier.
Curators Lauro Cavalcanti, Kiki Mazzucchelli, and Claudia Moreira Salles have created an immersive display throughout Maison La Roche, enabling the artworks to engage in a dialogue with Le Corbusier's architecture. The exhibition includes a historical section to foreground Le Corbusier's formative relationship with Brazilian modernist architects, a spotlight on his work beyond architecture, and new commissions by contemporary Brazilian artists conceived specifically for designated areas within the house. Brazilian galleries, French gallery Mennour, and major institutions contributed to the event. The Fondation Le Corbusier loaned urban planning studies for Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, as well as the letters he wrote to Brazilian friends in 1960. The estates of Lúcio Costa and the Burle Marx Institute lent historical documents and artworks from their collections, while the Fundação Oscar Niemeyer produced a rare red edition of Niemeyer's Marquesa Bench, in collaboration with ETEL, a company specializing in limited editions of modern design classics.
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Globalization and Architecture: The Dependency on Foreign Talent in the Global SouthWhile Le Corbusier's direct influence on a new generation of modernist architects in the second half of the 20th Century is clear, ABERTO4 draws a parallel between the popularization of the international style and the birth of geometric abstraction in the country. By bringing contemporary artists who created commissioned works in response to Le Corbusier's legacy in different fields, the exhibition examines his lasting impact on the present. – Kiki Mazzucchelli, Curator
Archival materials exhibited reveal Le Corbusier's ties with Brazil from 1929 until he died in 1965. He collaborated with a generation of young architects from Rio de Janeiro, including Lúcio Costa, Oscar Niemeyer, Affonso Eduardo Reidy, and Jorge Moreira, as well as the São Paulo School, including Vilanova Artigas and Paulo Mendes da Rocha. Le Corbusier consulted on the design for the Ministry of Education's new headquarters in Rio de Janeiro (1936-1943). He and Niemeyer also combined their proposals for the United Nations Headquarters in New York (1948-1952), today a landmark of the city's skyline. Le Corbusier was later entrusted with the development of Costa's design for the Maison du Brésil (1952–1959) in Paris's utopian Cité Internationale Universitaire, maintaining the original concept while introducing a series of documented modifications. The selection of works, documents, and historical archives in Brazil After Le Corbusier seeks to offer a new perspective on the narrative of international modern architecture, hosted in one of its most iconic buildings.
In other news, a new exhibition at the Danish Architecture Center in Copenhagen explores recycling and reuse as a new approach to creating, living, and building amid the ongoing climate crisis. The exhibition "Ma Yansong: Architecture and Emotion", showcasing the work of Chinese architect Ma Yansong and his firm MAD Architects, has also opened at the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam. Ma Yansong was also the curator of the Chinese Pavilion at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale, which opened on May 10. This edition is projected to be the largest Architecture Biennale ever held in Venice, with over 750 participants, 65 national pavilions, and a variety of collateral events. The curator's practice, Carlo Ratti Associati, has unveiled images of AquaPraça, a floating gathering space for global climate dialogue set to anchor COP30 in Belém, to be exhibited in Venice this September.
