Brazil

Muros de Ar/Walls of Air explores the ways in which to read, challenge and transgress the material and immaterial boundaries of Brazil and its architecture. It embraces the proposal FREESPACE as a provocation both to question the different forms of walls that build, at multiple scales, the Brazilian territory and to rethink architecture’s own disciplinary boundaries and its relation to other fields of knowledge. The curators convened a multidisciplinary committee and invited a group of consultants to participate in the creation of the exhibition. Renowned independent professionals from all over the country together with academic research groups exchanged ideas with the curatorial team to generate the large-format cartographic drawings displayed in the pavilion. Walls of Air detailed line drawings make visible the forms of spatial and conceptual separations that have resulted from Brazil’s urbanisation processes. In addition to the 10 large cartographies, the pavilion presents, in its introductory room, drawings and models of 17 projects from 9 Brazilian cities. The selected projects, by both renowned and younger local architects, reflect the possibility of conceiving architecture as a means to re-conceptualise the barriers within our cities.