Coffee: A Brazilian Baroque Black Pearl

If one considers how people in the U.S. react to the word “liberal,” it may become easier to understand the way Brazilians relate to the word “modern.” Culturally embedded in both nations’ histories, the first continues in relative disrepute, despite the recent election of one of the more liberal presidents in U.S. history. The second reflects an overly optimistic, patriotic aphorism used many times during the inauguration of Brazil’s first female president. Both words are deeply related to the specific political culture of these countries. My presentation focuses on the 1930s roots of the use of the term by analyzing the transnational professional network responsible for the design (and artistic interior) of four Brazilian pavilions in the 1937 (Paris) and 1939 (New York) international exhibitions.  Anchored in the ideas of forgetfulness, forgiveness, and accountability, the essay focuses on how Brazilian politico-urban history and scholarly artistic/historical narratives have created an elusive cultural umbrella over modern architecture as synonymous with national identity.  Expanding on other aspects of this theme geo-cultural terrain, my paper focuses on a less known architectonical foreign and local circuit linked to the coffee industry including here entrepreneurs from mixed-capital enterprises, politicians, municipal officers and professionals (engineers, architects, designers, and painters). They all navigated a complex international network enforcing and influencing new dialogues. The Brazilian pavilions reveal how these dialogues traversed continents in contingent and unexpected combinations of agents. The paper brings new insights and questions about urban space, modern architecture, and national identity.