To the death of Paulo Mendes da Rocha

At the end of April, this year's holder of the UIA Gold Medal was announced, who is Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha. The award was to be officially presented to him in mid-July 2021 during the UIA World Congress in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. However, the planned ceremony will have to undergo changes, as Rocha passed away yesterday morning at the age of 92 in São Paulo hospital due to complications related to lung cancer.

Rocha's life was intrinsically linked to the largest city in Latin America. He grew up in São Paulo, Brazil, graduated in 1954 with a degree in architecture from Mackenzie Presbyterian University, and the majority of his realizations, where graceful form meets acknowledged construction logic, are located there. Exposed concrete matched the brutalist aesthetics of the time, which, under Le Corbusier's influence, dominated the entire post-war scene. The mild Brazilian climate combined with rapid and inexpensive construction proved ideal for fulfilling these dreams and gave rise to the term "Brazilian Brutalism."

In symbiosis with wild vegetation and a pulsating metropolis, Rocha created museums, cultural centers, sports stadiums, public spaces, and transportation buildings. Alongside his architectural profession, Rocha also served as a university professor at FAU-USP in São Paulo until 1998, impacting several generations of Brazilian architects. For his lifetime achievements, he received the prestigious Pritzker Prize in 2006, the Golden Lion at the Venice Architectural Biennale ten years later, and in 2017 he was awarded the RIBA Gold Medal by the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Last year, Rocha bequeathed his entire archive to the Portuguese center Casa da Arquitectura, thus expanding its collection by an additional 8,800 items (6,300 sketches, 3,000 photographs, and 300 publications along with several models) covering nearly seventy years of professional career during which he created 320 projects. Casa da Arquitectura is preparing a monographic exhibition of Rocha's work, which will be presented at its headquarters in two years, but even now, Rocha has joined the ranks of Lina Bo Bardi and Oscar Niemeyer among the immortal figures of Brazilian architecture.

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