Sérgio Rodrigues (Rio de Janeiro RJ 1927)
Furniture Designer, Architect.
In 1947, he joined the National Faculty of Architecture of the University of Brazil - FNA, in Rio de Janeiro. In 1949, he works as an assistant professor of David Xavier de Azambuja, who, in 1951, invited him to participate in the elaboration of the Civic Center of Curitiba project, with the architects Olavo Redig de Campos and Flávio Regis do Nascimento, through those who know Lucio Costa (1902 - 1998). Rodrigues graduated in architecture in 1951. He moved to Curitiba, where he created Móveis Artesanal Paranaense, in partnership with the Hauner brothers, who in 1954 hire him to command the sector of creation of interior architecture of their new company, A Forma S.A., in São Paulo. During this period, he comes into contact with the production of several European designers, meets Gregori Warchavchik (1896 - 1972) and Lina Bo Bardi (1914 - 1992).
In 1955, he resigns from the form, and returns to Rio de Janeiro. It feeds the idea of creating a space for the production and commercialization of Brazilian design, which takes place with the opening of OCA, in 1955. In the 1950s, he created the Mole, Lúcio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer armchairs. From 1959 to 1960, he made the first studies of SR2 - Industrialization System of Prefabricated Modulated Elements for Construction of a Wooden Housing Architecture. The prototypes of the buildings are displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro - MAM/RJ. The system is used in the construction of the Iate Clube de Brasília and two lodging pavilions and restaurant at the University of Brasília - UNB, in 1962. [International Mobile Competition], in 1961, in Cantù, Italy, chosen from more than 400 guests from 35 countries. This award gives international projection to his career as a furniture designer. Produced in Italy by ISA, the armchair was exported to several countries under the name of Sheriff.
With the aim of marketing furniture produced in series at affordable prices, the company Meia-Pataca created in 1963, which remains in the market until 1968. That year, he sells Oca and sets up a studio in Rio de Janeiro, where he works with interior architecture for homes, offices and hotels and carries out projects for the Central Bank in Brasília and the headquarters of Editora Bloch, in Rio de Janeiro, in addition to developing furniture lines for production industrial. Participates in the Brazilian furniture exhibition - premises and reality, at the São Paulo Museum of Art Assis Chateaubriand - MASP. Work, in 1987. Participates, with Lucio Costa and Zanine Caldas (1918 - 2001), of the Brazilian Show 93 - La Costruzione de una identità culturale [Brazil 93 - The construction of a cultural identity] Brescia, Italy. In 1991, he presented in 1991, in the exhibition Falando de Chair at MAM/RJ, several works carried out since the 1950s. Armchair says.
Critical Comment
One of the most important furniture designers in Brazil, alongside names such as Joaquim Tenreiro (1906 - 1992) and Zanine Caldas (1918 - 2001), Sérgio Rodrigues plays a decisive role in the history of Brazilian furniture. Author of a vast work, he began his career as a designer in the 1950s, in Rio de Janeiro, a period of consolidation of modern architecture. In express criticism of eclecticism, he develops furniture consistent with the new spaces of architecture.
Two well-known creations are from 1956, the CD-7 chair or Lucio Costa, made of solid wood turned and seated in a straw - so-called in Tribute to the architect, great supporter of Rodrigues' work - and the PL-7Jockey or Oscar Niemeyer armchair, with wooden structure and straw braid, arms carved as unique pieces, with an anatomical design, constructive solution considered authentically Brazilian by Lucio Costa (1902 - 1998), although similarities can be perceived with certain works by the Danish architect and designer Finn Juhl (1912 - 1989).
In a period in which the criteria of nationality and Originality guides the aesthetic judgments in architecture and the visual arts, several commentators on Rodrigues' achievements, among them Lucio Costa, spread an interpretation of his work as an example of the Brazilian singularity1.
His most famous creation is the Mole armchair, by 1957. Comfortable and robust, it is considered a symbol of national design. Such a Brazilian bias is reinforced by the comment of the contest report in Cantù, in 1961, which justifies the 1st prize given to the piece by the criteria of modernity and expression of regionality. The desire to conceive a piece of furniture that expresses the national identity is professed by the author himself and emphasized by several commentators and scholars,2 who associate the armchair with a Brazilian way of sitting, with ideas such as laziness and relaxation, and emphasize the harmony of Rodrigues' furniture with the Relaxation, informality and contestation of a new lifestyle of the youth of the 1960s. They consider it an originality, although the mole refers to creations such as 670, by Charles Eames (1907 - 1978). In fact, the furniture contrasts with the standards of the time, of the thin feet sticks, bringing the thickness and robustness of the turned wooden structure, with leather straps that form a basket to receive the cushions, also made of leather, which allows the user to mold the body anatomically when sitting. The armchair, which is part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art - MoMA in New York, is still a sales success today.
Rodrigues received an invitation in 1958 to prepare pieces of furniture for the National Congress building, in Brasília, then under construction. For the waiting room, it designs the PO-3 armchair, which later receives the name of Beto, with a chrome steel structure and a hardwood arm, a seat and a backrest. In 1960, he produced the table that becomes known as Itamaraty, for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brasília, a project by Oscar Niemeyer (1907). With small variations, the furniture is used at the Brazilian Embassy in Rome.
At the invitation of Darcy Ribeiro, then rector of the University of Brasília - UNB, created in 1962 the seats of the auditorium of the candangos, designed by the architect Alcides da Rocha Miranda (1909 - 2001), for which you find a creative constructive solution: the use of rockers, which provide more comfort and facilitate the passage of passers-by. of a similar design is the armchair created in 1965 for the Auditorium Institute of Architects of Brazil - IAB/DF, in Brasília, an honorable mention in the IAB contest that year, used in several Brazilian auditoriums, such as Anhembi and the Foundation of Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo - FAPESP, in São Paulo.
Another famous armchair is Tonico, created in 1963 for the company Meia-Pataca, with a plump pillow to support the neck, supported by straps adjustable. 1973 is the Kilin PL-104 lightweight armchair, made of solid wood and canvas or leather seat and back, awarded by the IAB in 1975.
in the 1970s. 1980, prepares projects for hotels, such as the DAAV chair and the Júlia armchair. In the 1990s, he continued to design furniture, such as the Chico and Adolpho chairs, made for the Bloch publishing room. The irreverence that marks his projects accompanies him over more than 50 years of uninterrupted career, noted in projects, such as the 1992 Nina sun lounger, whose design refers to a caravel by Pedro Álvares Cabral, in which he highlights the search for comfort of rest, with the right to book support.
The examination of its vast production of furniture allows us to perceive the preference for wood as the main material, often used combined with leather or straw, others with upholstery of fabrics of natural fibers, such as cotton and canvas and, less frequently, with metal. It is worth mentioning, in addition to the innovative character of the pieces produced for OCA, the importance of this company for the development of the modern furniture industry in Brazil, for its contribution to the dissemination of Brazilian design and its acceptance in the market. Created in 1955 as an interior architecture studio, and an art gallery, Ocar is stimulated by the excellent phase that national architecture was going through.
of his work as an architect, relatively obliterated by the notoriety as a furniture designer, the idealization of the SR2, system composed of prefabricated wood elements for the construction of housing architecture. In the 1960s, hundreds of units were produced and assembled, many of them in the Amazon rainforest, including houses, housing projects, inns, clubs, restaurants and outpatient stations3.
Notes
1 Regarding the Oca, Lucio Costa comments on how the company's name defines the intention of the project: to resume the spirit of the simplicity of the indigenous house, integrate past and present in Brazilian material culture. For more details, see: SANTOS, Maria Cecília Loschiavo dos. modern furniture in Brazil. São Paulo: Studio Nobel, 1995.
2 Regarding the search for Brazilianness, see the studies: SANTOS, Maria Cecília Loschiavo dos. op. cit. and SANTOS, Maria Cecília Loschiavo dos. Tradition and modernity in the Brazilian furniture Visions of Utopia in the work of Carrera, Tenreiro, Zanine and Sérgio Rodrigues. Doctoral Thesis, Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences, University of São Paulo, 1993. For the researcher, Sérgio Rodrigues acted seeking to think about Brazil for design, especially his comments about Mole.
3 About this activity by Sérgio Rodrigues and the SR2 See: GALVÃO, Tânia Nunes. Sergio Rodrigues: Architect and designer of furniture. Master's Dissertation, Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, University of São Paulo, 2001.
Source: Itaú Cultural
