Of course, any contemporary Brazilian architect has to struggle with the long shadows of the legendary generation of Brazilian Modernists like Oscar Niemeyer, Lina Bo Bardi, Affonso Reidy, or Joao Batista Vilanova Artigas. But judging by the projects that Isay Weinfeld has designed over the last 41 years, it looks he has managed to step out into the light. A travelling exhibition opens in Vienna this week, presenting his work from “A to Z”, so uncube has taken the opportunity to present an extended image gallery previewing the works on show.
Isay Weinfeld was born in São Paulo in 1952. He studied architecture at the Mackenzie University there before setting up his own company at the tender age of 21. Working predominantly in his home country at first, Weinfeld's practice designed numerous private residencies, apartment buildings, offices, hotels, shops, and restaurants. Right from the beginning he aimed to design projects ranging from the grandest to the smallest scale, and when possible all the details, including the furniture, as well. With his own recognisable style of classic modernism with a Brazilian touch, he has since gained worldwide recognition for commissions such as the “Square Nine Hotel” in Belgrade, a hotel complex in Uruguay and a private residence for the Royal family of Monaco, on which he is currently working.
In February 2014 Weinfeld won an architecture competition for a 73-metre residential tower in Vienna. The high-rise project as a whole has stirred heavy controversy locally, which is exactly why the Viennese Architekturzentrum invited Weinfeld to bring over his exhibition A to Z. The world of Isay Weinfeld, previously on show in São Paulo and New York, to Vienna. Opening this Thursday, the show offers a broad panorama of Weinfeld’s 40 years of practice. The A to Z in the show’s title is mirrored most of all in the exhibited objects of a cradle and a coffin which Weinfeld designed. “They express my wish to design from the beginning of life to the end”, Weinfeld says. “My approach is not depending on the scale. Be it a building or a coffin, it has a function and it must work well”.
A to Z. The World of Isay Weinfeld
December 18, 2014 - February 23, 2015
Architekturzentrum Wien
Museumsplatz 1
1070 Vienna
Austria
