Dissemination of design knowledge: evidence from 1950s' Brazil: Fid-Bau Portal

Dissemination of design knowledge: evidence from 1950s' Brazil

Lara, Fernando Luiz

The dissemination of design knowledge is most often approached as an intra-disciplinary movement in which information circulates between scholars and practitioners. In this article I use evidence from what happened in Brazil in the 1950s and early 1960s to expand upon the idea of design dissemination outside the boundaries of those trained in architecture. Walking around the residential neighbourhoods in the major Brazilian cities, one cannot avoid noticing a repetition of certain architectural elements employed on thousands of façades not designed by architects. The rooflines are often sloping inwards. Innumerable concrete slabs float above entrances supported by thin metal columns. Ceramic tiles in pastel colours cover most of the front surfaces of the houses. Shadow and ventilation are very often provided by brise-soleils. Such evidence of design being disseminated outside the traditional boundaries of architecture might, I shall argue, contribute to contemporary discussion about the specificity of design knowledge. My main point in this paper is that design does disseminate to a larger or lesser extent and the study of how it happens should help us to understand some of the unique characteristics of architecture's knowledge base.