Lina Bo Bardi

Biography
Achillina Bo was originally an Italian modernist architect, industrial designer, heritage conservationist, and writer predominantly active in Brazil. In 1939, she graduated in architecture from the University of Rome, where her instructors included Marcello Piacentini and Gustavo Giovannoni. She then moved to Milan, where she began working with Carlo Pagani and writing about design. Along with Gio Ponti, she contributed to the magazine Lo Stile and wrote for several Italian design magazines. From 1944 to 1945, she was the deputy director of the magazine Domus. In 1946, she married Pietro Maria Bardi (gallery director, art dealer, and critic) and soon the newlyweds moved to Brazil at the invitation of media magnate Assis Chateaubriand to help establish the art museum MASP in São Paulo, the first in Brazil to collect and exhibit modern art. In 1950, Bo Bardi and her husband founded the magazine Habitat, which became one of the most significant architectural magazines in Brazil. She obtained Brazilian citizenship in 1951. In 1958, she began working on the new MASP building, which was completed in 1968. In the 1950s, she also started working in Salvador, where she lectured at the university and designed an art museum but had to leave the Brazilian state of Bahia in 1964 for political reasons. Her subsequent time in São Paulo was marked by the oppression of the military dictatorship that lasted until 1985. During this period, Bo Bardi curated exhibitions and worked in theater, designing sets and costumes for several productions. In the 1980s, she initiated projects to preserve and restore historic buildings in downtown Salvador. With great delay, she gained recognition as one of the most prolific female architects of the 20th century.