Casa da Arquitectura and the Public Archive of the Federal District of Brasilia join forces to share Lucio Costa's digital collection

 

The agreement aims to gather and make available essential documents from the architect's career, promoting the preservation and dissemination of his legacy relating to the Brasilia Pilot Plan. As well as facilitating future research and exhibitions, the initiative will enable the exchange of knowledge and experience between the institutions.

 

Since 2021, Casa da Arquitectura has held Lucio Costa's personal collection and his property rights, which have been passed on by his heirs. This collection includes plans, sketches, correspondence, photographs and publications, covering almost a century of intellectual production. The elements of the Brasilia Pilot Plan, the project that gave rise to the Brazilian capital, stand out.

 

As well as his professional career, the collection also reflects his personal and family experiences, comprising documents of a diverse nature, such as correspondence, newspaper articles, clippings, magazines, posters, photographs, family albums, postcards, maps, plans, sketches, drawings and notes on a wide variety of media, such as envelopes, the backs of calendars, scratch sheets or business cards, for example.

 

The Public Archive of the Federal District (ArPDF) has documents related to the life and work of Lucio Costa from various institutional sources, such as the Companhia Urbanizadora da Nova Capital do Brasil (NovaCap) and the State Secretariat for Culture. This collection includes records of the construction of Brasilia, historical testimonies and materials from organisations that followed the development of the city.

 

Considering the historical and cultural importance of Lucio Costa's work for the construction of the city of Brasilia, which is a World Heritage Site, this agreement provides for ‘the exchange of knowledge, information, documents and experiences between the parties, for the purposes of information, improvement, safekeeping, preservation and dissemination of the Lúcio Costa collection related to the “Pilot Plan of Brasilia” and other projects for the construction of Brasilia authored by the architect Lúcio Costa’. 

 

This protocol, the document signed between the parties states, also promotes ‘research, preservation actions, technical support in document management and the valorisation of Lucio Costa's memory, recorded in the documentary collections on the construction of Brasilia’, as well as ‘permanent communication channels [...] with the aim of promoting strategic actions related to the Pilot Plan of Brasilia and other construction projects’ of Brazil's capital.

 

The parties are committed to sharing this documentation in digital format, as well as experimenting with solutions to improve its storage and preservation in any other format. 

 

‘This agreement is of great importance as it will allow both parties to share various digital elements about the work of Lucio Costa and the formation of Brasilia,’ says Nuno Sampaio, adding that the use of the shared accesses is exclusively for the use of the two institutions and cannot be passed on to third parties.

 

‘Casa da Arquitectura, with the support of the Portuguese government, already has 10 annual Doctoral Research Scholarships in the area of Architecture, Urbanism and Territory on the collections of Casa da Arquitectura, which are funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and allow researchers, regardless of their origin, to study the institution's collections as long as they are linked to Portuguese universities,’ explains Nuno Sampaio.

 

Among this documentation is Lucio Costa's personal collection, now enriched with elements made available by the Public Archive of the Federal District. Nuno Sampaio recalls that the Casa da Arquitectura holds the collections of other Brazilian architects, namely that of Pritzker Paulo Mendes da Rocha - to whom it has already dedicated three exhibitions - without forgetting the exhibition ‘Infinito Vão: 90 Anos de Arquitetura Brasileira’, the result of a two-year process of work that CA carried out in Brazil to gather a collection of more than 200 donations that is part of the Casa's permanent collection.


Photo: Plano Piloto Brasília_Espólio Lucio Costa_Acervo Casa da Arquitectura