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When I arrive at the atelier house of the late contemporary artist Tomie Ohtake in São Paulo, I’m immediately taken by the scale. In a city known for its sky-high offices and apartment buildings, the one-story concrete home in the Campo Belo neighborhood is singular. Not only is it built by her son, Ruy Ohtake, in the quintessential style of Brazilian Brutalism—which evolved from the Modernist tradition and thrived from the 1950s into the late 1970s—but the façade curves as if in a wave, complementing its cerulean hue.
Usually closed to the public, I can tour the home because it’s one of two selected residences for the third edition of ABERTO, an arts platform founded by the Brazilian art advisor Filipe Assis that’s always held within a private home built by the country’s top architects. Within Tomie Ohtake’s house is a selection of works by prominent female Brazilian artists like Maria Klabin, Sandra Cinto, and Solange Pessoa to honor the late Brazilian-Japanese artist’s legacy, while in the Morumbi neighborhood in the former residence of Chu Ming Silveira works by artists like Mira Schendel and Lygia Clark are on exhibit. Like Ohtake’s home, Silveira—a Brazilian-Chinese architect and artist known as the designer of the Orelhão, the iconic egg-shaped telephone booth seen throughout the country—built her residence in the early 1970s in the Brutalist style.
“This year’s ABERTO is a tribute to both iconic female artists and their significant contributions to Brazilian design,” explains Assis as he takes me on a tour of both residences. “By hosting the exhibition in their homes, we hope to raise awareness of Brazil’s top artists while celebrating São Paulo’s architectural heritage.”
Launched in 2022, ABERTO is one of the many arts-focused initiatives developing in São Paulo. The Bela Vista neighborhood recently welcomed the Rosewood São Paulo in 2022, an architectural masterpiece built from the bones of a former hospital with a new addition: a vertical garden tower designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel. Like a museum itself, the hotel hosts 450 works created by over 50 Brazilian artists, including leading female creatives, from a suspended, gold-finished botanical sculpture by the artist Laura Vinciand to a tapestry installation by Regina Silvera that showcases the country’s endemic flora. As part of the greater Cidade Matarazzo—a series of buildings first opened in 1904 by Italian-born Count Matarazzo—the hotel is connected to the Soho House São Paulo, which opened in July and offers over 30 bedrooms with interior design inspired by the Brazilian Modernist movement.
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While development in the city shows no sign of slowing, platforms like ABERTO are more important than ever to protect the city’s architectural heritage. Due to São Paulo’s expanding urban landscape, many iconic Modernist and Brutalist homes are being demolished in favor of commercial and residential towers. “I couldn’t stand by and witness the demolition of architectural gems in São Paulo,” says Assis. “That’s why we are working to preserve and celebrate our architectural heritage. If people can see and tour these homes, they will intrinsically understand their value.”
Advising Assis on ABERTO is Lissa Carmona, the founder and CEO of ETEL. As part of her work at the atelier first opened by her mother in the 1980s, Carmona leads the re-edition of iconic furniture pieces by acclaimed designers such as Oscar Niemeyer, Jorge Zalszupin, Joaquim Tenreiro, Zanine Caldas, and Lina Bo Bardi. Carmona’s work extends to honoring the legacy of Bo Bardi—a multidisciplinary artist who moved to Brazil from Italy in 1946 with her husband, the Brazilian art critic Pietro Maria Bardi—with the opening of her Casa de Vidro in the Morumbi neighborhood. The glass house, completed in 1951, showcases some of the first edition pieces of furniture Bo Bardi designed, including a six-piece set of her iconic brass ball armchairs. Now, part of Carmona’s work is ensuring her designs land in the homes of aesthetes who appreciate the late artist s work.
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“Reissuing the works of great masters of Brazilian Modernist Architecture, particularly those of Lina Bo Bardi, is not merely an act of preservation but a vital cultural responsibility,” says Carmona. Some of the pieces produced by her gallery are at new developments such as the Rosewood São Paulo and the new Pulso Hotel, a property in the Pinheiros neighborhood that opened this May and was designed by the famed architect Arthur Mattos Casas.
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This year, one of Bo Bardi’s most iconic creations—the Museu de Arte de São Paulo, which she designed between 1957 and 1968—will receive a massive upgrade: a 14-story extension known as the Pietro Maria Bardi Building, which is set to include five exhibition galleries and two multi-use galleries, over doubling the museum’s exhibition space.
On my last day in São Paulo, I visit Luisa Strina at her eponymous gallery, which she founded in 1974 as one of Brazil s first female gallerists. “When I started, there wasn’t a gallery like this,” says Luisa Strina from behind her desk—a piece by Joaquim Tenreiro, who is often cited as the father of Brazilian modernism—who noted Brazil was a closed country to imports and exports until the 1980s. “I was the only person who represented contemporary artists.”
Together with Strina and Assis, we join Kiki Mazzucchellia, the curator of the gallery, for a walk through the latest exhibition: drawings on rice paper by the late Brazilian contemporary artist Mira Schendal. “Many of Brazil’s female artists weren’t recognized enough when they were alive,” says Mazzucchellia. “We want to change that.”
