Albert Frey and Lina Bo Bardi: A Search for Living Architecture

“Albert Frey and Lina Bo Bardi: A Search for Living Architecture” presents an unprecedented exploration of two visionary architects who critically expanded the meaning and practice of modern architecture. Lina Bo Bardi (1914–1992) emigrated from Italy to Brazil in 1946 and Albert Frey (1903–1998) from Switzerland to the United States in 1930. Though the two did not meet, Bo Bardi translated Frey’s treatise In Search of a Living Architecture for Domus, and their personal and professional odysseys are representative of the emergence of São Paulo and Southern California as architectural and cultural laboratories in the middle of the twentieth century. They each created modernist houses, furniture, public buildings, and approaches to urban design that moved beyond strict European rationalism to embrace the social and environmental contexts specific to their adoptive homes in the Americas. Bo Bardi and Frey shared a belief in architecture as a way to connect people, nature, building, and living. Even as they employed modern technologies, they responded to the climate and terrain of the local environment and the people whose personal and social experiences were touched by those conditions.

This exhibition, organized by Dr. Daniell Cornell, The Donna and Cargill MacMillan Jr., Director of Art, Palm Springs Art Museum and Dr. Zeuler R. Lima, Associate Professor, School of Design and Visual Arts, Washington University in St. Louis, is part of the Getty-led initiative Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, a far-reaching and ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles. This exhibition features an installation design by Bestor Architecture, Barbara Bestor, FAIA.

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