From 7 March to 31 May 2026, Brazilian architect Eduardo Longo's Casa Bola will open to the public for the first time. The futuristic ball-shaped house in São Paulo will host one of the two parts of the ABERTO5 exhibition, alongside a project on Faria Lima, a major avenue at the heart of the city featuring landmarks by architects such as Ruy Ohtake and Isay Weinfeld. Founded in 2022, ABERTO is an exhibition platform that promotes the encounter of architecture, art, and design in Brazil and internationally. After its first international exhibition at Maison La Roche in Paris, ABERTO returns to São Paulo for its fifth edition, presenting over 60 art and design pieces by 50 Brazilian and international artists. According to architect and curator Fernando Serapião, Casa Bola represents one of the most radical works of Brazilian architecture, challenging conventional domestic space and reflecting Eduardo Longo's experimental vision for housing.
Casa Bola was hand-built by Eduardo Longo between 1974 and 1979. The house is a prototype for his utopian vision of spherical housing and part of the radical architectural experiments undertaken in Brazil during the 20th century. Still inhabited by the architect since its completion, the building remains little known and is almost imperceptible within São Paulo's urban landscape. Suspended above the rooftop slab of his residence in the Itaim Bibi district, in the subprefecture of Pinheiros, the eight-meter-diameter spherical structure departs from traditional housing paradigms. Built entirely by hand using ferrocement moulded over a complex mesh of recycled steel tubes, the continuous structure integrates walls, built-in furniture, lighting fixtures, and even sanitary elements into an organic interior. The house marked the architect's departure from angular geometry in favour of the sphere as a construction system during the 1970s. This highly experimental vocabulary contrasted with the transparency and structural rationalism that characterized much of Brazilian modernist architecture at the time.
In line with its mission, ABERTO seeks to reactivate architectural works of historical significance, often private residences not usually accessible to the public, by transforming them into platforms for art and design. Artists and designers are invited to produce new works in response to the architecture, in collaboration with galleries. ABERTO5 proposes to position Casa Bola as a setting for artistic experimentation and new spatial interpretations. The curatorial framework of this edition, led by Filipe Assis, Claudia Moreira Salles, and Kiki Mazzucchelli, is shaped by the building itself. Spanning Casa Bola's 1,000 m² across three floors, the terrace, and the spherical house, the exhibition presents more than 60 art and design pieces by 50 Brazilian and international artists. Many of the contemporary works were conceived in dialogue with Casa Bola's radical character as a "habitable sculpture." Complementing these commissions is a selection of projects, sketches, and archival materials tracing Eduardo Longo's practice over the decades, curated by Fernando Serapião.
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Hidden Gems of Latin American ArchitectureRanging from painting and sculpture to installation, the new commissions respond to the house's spatial qualities. Visitors are welcomed by an aluminium curtain with a cut-out coated-steel frame by Daniel Steegmann Mangrané. Exploring the contrast between the man-made and the organic, the exhibition also includes sculptures by Sarah Lucas, Erika Verzutti, and Iole de Freitas. Multimedia paintings by Laís Amaral, Paloma Bosquê, and Tatiana Chalhoub engage with the building's curves and angles, while works by Luisa Matsushita, Sandra Cinto, and Maria Klabin interact with its colour scheme. Suspended installations by Tomás Saraceno, Laura Lima, and Leonor Antunes examine spatial and ecological themes through natural structures and materials.
This edition continues ABERTO's engagement with Brazilian modern architecture. The inaugural edition in 2022 took place in the only private residence in São Paulo designed by Oscar Niemeyer, supported by the Fundação Oscar Niemeyer, and featured furniture designed by Niemeyer with his daughter, Anna Maria. In 2023, the second edition was held in a house by Vilanova Artigas, a key figure of the Paulista School. The third edition in 2024 focused on the artistic and architectural legacies of Tomie Ohtake and Chu Ming Silveira, opening their respective modernist homes to the public for the first time. In 2025, ABERTO held its first international edition at Le Corbusier's Maison La Roche in Paris, presenting 40 works by Brazilian artists and examining the architect's relationship with modernist architecture in Brazil.
Other recent exhibition announcements include the third edition of the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, on view through May 2, 2026, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Berlin-based practice sauerbruch hutton recently inaugurated matière en résonance ("resonant matter"), presenting models and photographs related to its exploration of timber. In addition, two museum projects have recently been announced: Níall McLaughlin Architects won the international competition for the Museum of Jesus' Baptism at Bethany in Jordan, and Sordo Madaleno, in collaboration with építész stúdió and Buro Happold, has been selected to design the 43,000-square-meter New Debrecen Collection Center for the Hungarian Museum of Natural History.
