WILD LOVE
ROGUE KNOWLEDGE
HANDCRAFTED
Sometimes the only way out of an architectural grid-lock is to attempt the impossible: the exact ratio between the ridiculous and the sublime
Look, may we be bluntly to the point here? There is nothing to be done about this place unless we would be able to transport the whole staircase from the Itamaraty Palace and land it right here in the middle of this grid-lock gallery; just like that, even if it doesn’t quite fit. We are pretty sure there is no other way out if were not for this powerful gesture of design. And then, everybody started praying for the transplant to be a successful one. It then proved to be successful enough. The whole place became alive again… If our predicaments are not that far off the flight plan, the whole thing will soar for a long time above good and evil, beyond good and evil. Some gestures of courage like this one are not to be found around the corner. Not everybody relocates the budget of a building plan into some oblique object like that 30 tons spiral cantilevered staircase. A gigantic presence that entered the room without being invited in the first place, claiming to have the sole solution. No, not everybody has this capacity of believing in architecture.
But some special people do have it, and they are the ones who change the narrative into other dimensions. Magical ones: Natalie Klein is one of those kindled persons. She did it. We did it, because she did it. Today, visitors of this fashion house can enjoy a cup of coffee or a nice reading underneath the monumental artifact. An architectural object that claims to be the first citation in architectural history. We mean, the first authentically approved one. Our work went beyond the design of the shop and its program to reach the archives of Oscar Niemeyer to present the idea as an art object. The foundation responsible for his estate has given us green light in the face of the arguments that went into a small book. A pink book that brings some of the intricate and convoluted thesis that claims that the (impossible) copy of that Niemeyer bound object was the right thing to do. Tupi has placed under quotation marks the whole of Niemeyer metonymical oeuvre. Walter Benjamin once taught us that it is the translation that renders the other one across the hall the Original (there is no original without translation). The building of that staircase has proven to be a difficult task for many reasons. Its sheer presence made us reevaluate the design decisions to the point of making all wardrobes and shelves behind curtains and also cabinets with retractable doors so one could hide all products (this is exactly the opposite of what retail design rules point out any of us to do) in order to give room to the stairs to breathe.
The enforced circulatory system driven by the size and presence of the staircase plotted other ideas onto the plan: things like keeping two doors, one for each street around the corner, so the shop area became a gallery, a small urban device rather than a room; while its size and disposition of gallery widthwise and lengthwise proportionate the fashion house to throw parties and catwalks like in the old days of Paris' Maisons. The gesture slowly has proven to be of the order of a fashion epiphany rather than of an architectural nature, or was it an evidence of the fashionista bend that every architectural project carries along in its core. Fashion and architecture: these are the sole works of art where human beings can inhabit in the inside. A Niemeyeresque stairwell is for sure of the dimension of a flower or a lace floating above the silk folds of a garment.