Oscar Niemeyer, Hospital Da Lagoa (1952). Photo: John Hartmann

John Hartmann, SCE faculty member and principal at Freecell Architecture, recently traveled to Brazil, a nation whose architecture had deeply inspired him since his student days, when he discovered Henry Russell Hitchcock’s Latin American Architecture Since 1945.  Hartmann’s account of his encounters with such modernist icons as Affonso Eduardo Reidy’s Pedregulho housing project (1950-52), Oscar Niemayer’s Hospital Da Lagoa (1952) and Lucio Costa’s Guinle Park residential buildings (1954) can be found at ArchDaily.  Of the experience of experiencing these projects in peron for the first time, Hartmann said, “These projects were not the crisp sun drenched modernism of my imagination, but they exceeded my expectation with an unexpected vibrance.”