Modernism Made Vernacular: The Brazilian Case

From its early acceptance in the 1940s and 1950s, modern architecture in Brazil has become the vernacular, adapted and adopted by the middle class with the help of contractors and unskilled laborers. Even the poorest favelas are constructed using modernist principles on a scale unmatched in developed nations. The Brazilian case highlights a number of issues regarding the relationship between modernism and vernacular architecture, a topic insufficiently explored in architectural scholarship outside Europe and North America.