Necessary Documentation (1937)
Author(s): Lucio Costa
Source: Future Anterior: Journal of Historic Preservation, History, Theory, and
Criticism , Winter 2009, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Winter 2009), pp. 48-57
Published by: University of Minnesota Press
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MINISTERIO DA EMJCACA0 E SAIJDE
REVISTA DO SERYKP
DO PATRIMONIO
HISTORICO E ARTISTICO
NACIONAL
?957
RIO DE JANEIRO
!
The cover of the 1937 issue of the Revista do Servico do Patrimonio Historico e Artfstico National, the official journal of
SPHAN, where Lucio Costa's article "Documentacao necessaria" was first published.
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Lu?docoes"I Necessary Documentation (1937)
Lucio Costa (1902-1998) is known as an early pioneer of his
toric preservation and modern architecture. This essay, origi
nally published as "Documentacao necessaria" in the official
Revista do Servigco do Patrimonio Historico e Artistico Nacional
in 1937 is one of his most important contributions to preser
vation theory, for it advances the then-polemical claim that
vernacular architecture was as historically significant as
refined works of architecture.1 Interest in "folk" traditions was
widespread among 1930s intellectuals in many disciplines
and on both sides of the political spectrum, from architects
like Giuseppe Pagano in Italy and Paul Sculze-Naumburg in
Germany, to composers like Manuel de Falla in Spain, and
poets like Mario de Andrade in Brazil. Like other modernist
architects, Costa looked upon vernacular buildings as early
examples of rational unadorned construction, casting them as
precedents to a history of modernism, which he saw as tele
scoping back as well as forward in time. What distinguished
him from his contemporaries was precisely his view that
documentation was not an end in itself but rather a first step
toward the preservation of vernacular buildings.
Our historic architecture has yet to be adequately studied.
Even though some have written on the primary churches and
convents ?small efforts, incidentally, and for the most part
centered around the work of Antonio Francisco Lisboa, whose
personality has begun to attract deserved attention ?nothing
or almost nothing has been done in relation to civic architec
ture, and housing, in particular. Understandably, then, a less
than rigorous assessment of our historic architecture once in
a while does surface. Recently, a citation in an article titled
"The Architecture in Brazil"2 claimed that"... individual houses
are worthless as works of architecture...," followed by Anibal
Matos's supporting observation, "all houses having been
built by uncultured Portuguese, who brought from their vil
lages the disproportionate and somber type of their tradi
tional constructions."
Now then, popular architecture in Portugal, in our view, is
of greater interest than "erudite" architecture ?using here, for
lack of a better term, Mario de Andrade's expression to distin
Future Anterior
Volume VI, Number 2 guish the art of the people from that of the scholarly. It is in
Winter 2009 the villages and the vigor of their rural constructions, both
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rough and welcoming, that the qualities of a race are best
shown. Free of the affected and at times pedantic airs it
assumes when refined, popular architecture takes shape
naturally at will, revealing in the precision of its proportions
and in the absence of "makeup,"3 a perfect aesthetic health,
so to speak.
Characteristics such as these, brought along to our coun
try individually by the old, "uncultured" master builders and
masons, far from signifying a bad beginning, lent early on and
on the contrary an unpretentious and pure quality to Portuguese
architecture in the colony, which it was able to keep until the
mid-nineteenth century, in spite of the vicissitudes it suffered.
In this instance, the "softening" noted by Gilberto Freyre
can undoubtedly be seen, the architecture having lost, due
to the compromises of environmental adaptation, some of
that typically Portuguese carrure,* but in compensation, due
to simpler customs and colonial life's greater largesse, and
influenced as well, perhaps, by the grandiosity of the American
landscape, certain precious and somewhat snotty mannerisms
found there were never replicated here. Material difficulties of
all kinds largely contributed to this, among them the labor, by
its nature inexperienced, of natives and blacks: Indians, used
to a different economy affording them the leisure for the sharp
and careful fabrication of arms, tools, and ornaments, certainly
found strange the rough and rushed workmanship of impa
tient whites. Over time, blacks proved to be skillful artists in
the different crafts, showing even a certain "virtuosity," some
what academic and much to European taste ?which recalls
for us older works, when the fair-skinned and handsome bar
barian of the north clumsily interpreted the novelty of acan
thus leaves in his first contacts with Latin civilization or, later,
striving to translate, still with a harsh and gothic accent, re
discovered Greco-Roman motifs. In both, there is the same
manner of someone discovering something new without having
quite yet understood it correctly, without a shred of maTtrise,5
but with plenty of artistic will, along with a sense of revelation
that, in one or the other, eventually disappears with the re
finement of theirtechnique. Lastly, distance as well as neces
sities of different and more urgent sorts also contributed to a
greater differentiation, keeping in mind the delay that local
realizations have in relation to the metropolis and, in general,
the marked uninterest in innovation of all kinds.
Our house thus appears almost always unadorned and
poor compared to the opulence of Italian palazzi and w7/e,6
castles of France, or English "mansions"7 of the same period;
orto the rich and vain appearance of many Hispano-American
manor houses; or even to the palatial and coquettish aspect
of certain noble Portuguese residences. However, to state that
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it does not have value as a work of architecture is a declara
tion that in no way corresponds to reality.
There would be an interest, therefore, in knowing it bet
ter, not just to avoid the replication of similar frivolities and
misconceptions?which would grant them undue importance ?
but in order to offer to those who have been for some time
now committed to studying more closely all that is ours, while
sympathetically addressing things that have commonly been
despised or even deliberately concealed, the opportunity to
use it as new research material, and to also ensure that we
modern architects take advantage of the lessons of over three
hundred years of experience, so as not to reproduce an aspect
already dead.
Work ought to be done, if not by a professional, then at
least with his assistance, in order to ensure a technical preci
sion and objectivity, without which it would lose its purpose.
And this study should not be limited to the apparently more
likable houses of the first half of the nineteenth century, as
has been the case to date ?largely because some aspects of
family life from that period are better known ?but include as
well the eighteenth-century house, and even the vestiges of
that of the seventeenth century when, harsh as life was, con
trasts were sharper, and in terms of architecture proper, it
prompts greater interest. Nor should one concentrate only on
plantation houses or on the townhouses with seven, nine, or
fifteen windows and a door right in the middle, but on the
smaller houses, rather, with three, four, and even five bal
conies, a door to the side, and less formal appearance. There
are the more petit bourgeois houses, like those that can still
be found in the old cities of Minas Gerais (Figure 1), all having
similar entrance halls where stairs first offer a few inviting
steps and are soon hidden, half enclosed, in between the
walls (Figure 2). There are also the little, single-story houses
lining the streets, small in the front, very deep, and simply
gabled. Lest we forget, there is finally the colonist's "minimum"
house, as it is now called, which is of all other houses ?it is
important to note ?the only one that continues to be "alive"
throughout the country despite having so fragile an aspect. It
appears on the side of the road when one leaves the city, just
2.
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outside Petropolis, right next to the more picturesque summer
houses. Built of tree limbs from the nearest woods and mud,8
much like an animal enclosure, it shelters an entire family
infants, little boys, young women, elders, all brought together
along with their air of sickness and inertia and waiting... (the
capitalist neighbor?fit, "aerodynamic," and a good Catholic
has only one concern: what will the tourists say?). And nobody
pays attention, so common has this become, because "that"
is as much a part of the earth as an anthill, a wild fig tree, and
a corn stalk?as an extension of the ground itself... but it
is precisely because they are an intrinsic part of the ground
that such houses have for us architects a certain respectability
and dignity, whereas the "pseudo-mission, Norman, or colo
nial," houses next to them are no more than poorly handled
imitations.
Besides, the ingenious manner in which they are made
using mud reinforced with wood ?has something of our re
inforced concrete about it, and, with due precautions, the
same tactics should be adopted for summerhouses and low
cost constructions in general, such as raising the floor from
the ground and whitewashing walls to avoid humidity and
"kissing bugs." That is what we tried to do in the workers'
town of Monlevade near Sahara, at the behest of the Com
panhia Siderurgica Belgo-Mineira9?a project that was not
taken seriously, as one can imagine.
Nevertheless, this study should closely examine the vari
ous systems and building processes, the different plan solu
tions, and how they vary from one region to another, while, in
each case, looking to determine the reasons ?whether pro
grammatic, technical, or otherwise ?as to why a house was
done in this or that way, such as the roofs, which, so simple
in theirdesign overthe main body, spread ?like chicken
wings ?to cover porches, additions, and such, avoiding dorm
ers and never using the type of mansard so fashionable in the
metropolis, but always preserving the unmistakable profile of
the Portuguese roof and even showing in some of the enor
mous mill and plantation house roof structures ?as seen in
engravings of the period ?a looser and extended line, con
tributing much to that impression of sleepiness they often
give; ceilings clad in camisa e saia10 boards that follow the
framework's profile; window and door frames with their respec
tive hardware, featuringthe usual models ?paneled doors
and guillotine windows with safety leaves and protective
jalousies?Venetian blinds appearing only in the nineteenth
century; and furniture, from the rougher furniture of early
times to the "Thonet" caned chairs ?or "Austrians," as they
were usually called ?that appeared at the end of the Empire,
pretty and comfortable, gaining popularity to the despair of
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refined taste and replacing a whole series of splendid pieces
in jacaranda wood that can still be found in antiquaries.
An examination undertaken in less haste would lead to
intriguing observations that counter current beliefs and sup
port the practice of modern architecture, observations that
would indeed show how the latter can be viewed as the con
tinuation of a normal evolution. It is commonly believed, for
instance, that the eaves of our old houses were meant to pro
vide protection from the sun when the truth is quite different.
A simple section (Figure 3) shows how in most cases such pro
tection would have been insufficient, though it never occurred
to good master builders. In the rain, however, the curtain of
water pouring from the roof is held off from the walls.
Later, with the appearance of gutters (Figure 4), roof para
pets were logically and gradually adopted, extending the cor
nice?now without purpose ?and stuck to the wall somewhat
clumsily and by force of habit (Figure 5) until the transforma
tion was complete with the advent of garden roof-terraces
(Figure 6). Proof that only rarely did eaves have other purposes
lies in California, Mexico, Morocco, etc., where there is plenty
of sun but rain is scarce, and eaves, when they exist, consist
in most cases of a single roof tile.
6.
It is also commonly believed that early builders gave their
walls an excessive thickness (Figure 7), not only as a pre
caution "just in case" ?given empirical notions of resistance
and stability back then ? but also to keep interiors cool. Well,
then, in constructions from the same period that used timber
frameworks, the walls are invariably no thicker than the sup
porting pillar (Figure 8), exactly like contemporary walls, which
match the thickness of the concrete equivalent (Figure 9).
Also worthy of study is the relation between window
openings and wall. In the older houses, presumably from the
late sixteenth century and throughout the seventeenth cen
tury, the solid wall prevailed (Figure 10), and soon we under
stand why: as life became easier and streets better policed,
the number of windows kept increasing. By the eighteenth
century, voids and solids balanced each other (Figure 11), and
by the beginning of the nineteenth century, openings clearly
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ALV6MAHIA MA?t>fct*A CONC^tTO
.Masonry 8. Wood 9. Concrete
dominated (Figure 12); from 1850 onward, window frames
almost touched each other (Figure 13) until the fagade, after
1900, was for all practical purposes entirely open (Figure 14),
having in many cases a common frame (Figure 15).
What we witness, therefore, is a tendency to open the
wall more and more. With this climate of ours, it makes sense
that this should have happened, however: despite much talk
about the blinding brightness of our sky, about the excessive
clarity of our days, etc., the fact remains that when well ori
ented, verandas are the best places in our houses to sit; after
all, what is a veranda if not a completely open room? And yet
when we modern architects suggest leaving one side of a
room open: aqui del rey!11
All this proves, therefore, that master builders back in
1910 were on the right track. Faithful to the good Portuguese
tradition of openness, they naturally applied to their plain
constructions all the new possibilities of modern techniques,
such as, in addition to fagades that were almost completely
open, the use of extremely thin iron columns; veranda floors
reinforced with double Ts and shallow vaults; freestanding
and elegantly proportioned stairs also made of iron, either
straight or in S curves or at times in a spiral; and other charac
teristics still, aside from the independent quest for a different
aesthetic balance (Figure 16).
CfcuLojrsL S??ulo Wit
10. Seventeenth century 11. Eighteenth century
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12. 13.
14. 15.
The study should then be brought up to the present day,
so as to determine both the reasons why such good norms
were abandoned and the origins behind the "disarray" that
we have witnessed for over twenty years. Once we exclude the
major likely cause for change, i.e., the general socioeconomic
transformations that came in the nineteenth century ? pre
cisely because our master builders, as we saw, embraced the
new techniques without restraint?there remain causes that
we could classify perhaps as "domestic" in nature. First, there
was the unforeseen development of a deplorable architectural
education responsible for burdening future architects with a
muddled "techno-decorative" baggage that bore no relation
to life, and for failing to clearly explain either the "why" of
16. The street fa
each element or the profound forces that in each period led
nose ?preserves
to the emergence of common characteristics, that is
appearance, butto say,
what liberal trea
a style. Second, the development, also unforeseen, of the
coming and so m
Corbusier. cinema exposed the greater public?which was until then
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Lc
unconcerned
17- They took to an extreme the ad with "those things," being us
herence to certain principles of good
but honest houses of the master builders
architecture, like the one dictating the
height of door frames: in tives: bungalows, Americanized Spanish
houses with
five-meter-high ceilings?then required
Once they joined forces?the property o
by municipal regulation ?we see ex
cinema,
tremely narrow doors, leading dreaming of the house seen in suc
to some
sanitary facility, reaching up to meet
architect, leaving school, dreaming of the
the height of other frames.
off what had been learned?the impact was
time at all, the bungalow, the Americanize
and the little castle were transferred from
city streets ?in grossly disfigured versions
be built "on the cheap."
That was when, with the best of intent
traditionalist movement appeared, of whic
part. We did not grasp that the true tradition
two steps away, with our contemporaneou
instead, through a contrived process of ad
pletely removed from actual customs that
more present and that the master builders
with simplicity and good sense?we searc
ments from colonial times: if we are faking
ing, we should at least fake something of o
farce would have continued ?were it not f
happened.
It is now up to us to recover all that lost time, reaching
out to the master builder so often maligned, to the old por
tuga12 of 1910, because ?and you may say what you want
it was he who preserved proper tradition, all by himself.
Endnotes
1 This translation was authorized by the Casa de Lucio Costa. Marta Caldeira trans
lated the Portuguese text into English, with editorial revisions by Fares el-Dahdah
of the Casa de Lucio Costa.
2 The original title in Portuguese is "A arquitetura no Brasil."
3 In the original text, the word is in English.
4 French word for "build."
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5 French word for "mastery."
6 Italian words for "palaces" and "villas."
7 In the original text, the word is in English.
8 In Brazil, this building technique is called pau-a-pique or taipa de mao.
9 The Belgian and Minas Gerais Metallurgic Company.
10 Camisa e saia is a type of joint for wooden boards commonly used in Brazilian
and Portuguese historic architecture. Like the shiplap joint, the camisa e saia uses
rebated sides, but it differs from the shiplap in the symmetry of the board, which
forms a T in section while the shiplap presents as an S. The boards are therefore
alternated as they are assembled, with the wider surface alternatively facing up or
down.
"Aquidel rey! is a historical expression commonly used to express exaggerated
dismay with a call for help that invoked the name of the king.
12 The term portuga is a popularly used in Brazil to refer to the Portuguese.
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