HART in the World: Rio de Janeiro
May - June 2017
Rio, Rio, você foi feito pra mim.
(Rio, you were made for me).
Tom Jobim
There is no other city in the world like Rio! Brazil's former capital is a city of wonders and contradictions—a combination of lush vegetation, urban rainforests, extraordinary architecture, informal urban settings, beautiful parks, stunning beaches, and joyful people in a lively and magnificent natural setting.
Through lectures, seminar discussions, museum visits, architectural itineraries, and field trips, this course explored the complex political, social, and cultural histories that have shaped Rio de Janeiro. Focusing on the examination of the built environment—natural and architectural—and the art produced from the late nineteenth century to today, this was an interdisciplinary course that offered an experience of Rio through architecture and urbanism as well as through music, film, dance, literature, and gastronomy.
The course also included trips to supermodern Brasilia—a capital city created ex-nihilo in the center of Brazil—and cosmopolitan São Paulo—the most populated megalopolis in the Americas—while analyzing Rio's modernism and its discontents.
Led by Prof. Fabiola López Durán.