Golden Lion for lifetime achievement for Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha

Born in Vitória, Brazil, in 1928, Paulo Mendes da Rocha began his career in São Paulo in the 1950s as a member of Brazil's 'brutalist Paulista' avant-garde. He graduated from Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie Mackenzie College of Architecture in 1954, and a year later set up his own office. His first famous work is the Athletic Club of São Paulo (1957).

Paulo Mendes da Rocha is one of the most consistent architects of the 20th century, creating from concrete and steel forms. His works include: the Brazilian Pavilion at the 1970 Osaka Expo, the Museum of Contemporary Art (1975), the showroom Forma Mobila (1987), and the Brazilian Sculpture Museum (1987-1992), all in São Paulo. He later realized the project for the rehabilitation of the Pinacotecia building, the oldest fine arts museum in São Paulo, in 1993.

Between 1992 and 2002, he revitalized Patriarch Plaza and Viaduct do Chá in downtown São Paulo, adding "a door to the old part of the city," as he likes to say.

Mendes da Rocha was a professor at the College of Architecture at the University of São Paulo, and was president of the Instituto de Arquitetos do Brasil. Over his 60 years of work, he has received numerous awards, including the Mies van der Rohe Prize (2000) and the Pritzker Prize (2006), and now the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2016).

https://vimeo.com/69204650

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