Pritzker Prize Recipient Paulo Mendes da Rocha
São Paulo Subway station: Patriarch Plaza
When I was 7 years old I spent a summer at a day camp for boy’s. Among other things, I learned to Box.
When I was 9 years old my parents sent me to a summer camp in Canada. I learned to kiss my first girlfriend. I learned to sail and canoe across lakes. But I remember that I learned again to Box.
Boxing had a special allure for me. Maybe because I grew up watching “Ali”. The magic and inspiration that he brought to a child’s imagination was life expanding. Until he lost in a “fixed” fight to Leon Spinks. After that I moved on to the ferocity of Mike Tyson. But I really didn’t have the stomach for digesting my opponents ears.
I remember the famous casting director Marion Dougherty suggesting that I look her up in Hollywood. I asked her what I would do. She said that she would take care of that. “I like the way you are, not a blemish”. The Director George Roy Hill nodded.
I was waiting tables at the time. All of my fellow waiters were aspiring actors. They thought I was nuts not to take up her offer. Can you imagine that If I was truly handsome, I would have been a movie star. Maybe I could have played a boxer in a film. A childhood fixation coming to life on the silver screen?
My only dream was to become a photographer.
I suddenly heard a bang. I realized I was strolling through wild São Paulo alone. My mind was adrift in a fog of fantasy and memory. The rains and the clouds screamed for me to find shelter. I awakened to the consuming pollution and the city’s grimy immersing poverty. The stormy weather quickly vanished. I was alone in silence.
I found myself standing in front of a subway station designed by Paulo Mendes da Rocha. It was like something out of a movie. I saw these explosive lights racing up to the clouds. I drew my flash gun, attached it to my camera....and “POP”. One frame, one fraction of a second recorded the type of photograph I dream about everyday on the streets of any city, any place in the world. Too old for pirouettes, I danced on my tiptoes. This was São Paulo, anything can happen here.
I was here to shoot the portrait of Paulo Mendes. He was a recent recipient of the Pritzker Prize. My images would find there way into my book “Portraits of the New Architecture 2”. More importantly, unbeknownst to me the next two days would be another affirmation as to why I am a photographer every waking moment.
Paulo Mendes da Rocha
My assistant and I arrived the next morning promptly as promised at the architects’ studio. It was the start of something precious.
Paulo greeted me with a “bob and weave”. “Your so tall”.
For the next couple of hours he would talk about his work and continue to look me up and down like you might a Sequoia. It was very entertaining.
His studio reminded me more a high school mathematic or science lab. It was tiny with chalkboards and sketches. It seemed to hold the scribbling of a madman or maybe an Einstein. I chased him around like Frazier chased Ali around the ring. The angle was close. I think we were both exhausted. I know my assistant Koji was. He towed some lights around that I never used.
Paulo invited us to his apartment to meet his wife and a bite of lunch. This was a great beginning. His prototype “Paulistano Armchair” winked at us like the ‘49er Gold Miner who had found his first nugget of the Gold Rush and a giant bear stood across the banks of the river. There is always a bigger question.
Paulo’s wife Helene called for lunch. The four of us chatted about everything and nothing. Paulo became anxious like a formidable middleweight stirring to get back in the ring. I sat in the chair with a cup of coffee following lunch. This was history for me. My agenda as a photographer has been to touch history. It was time to get a move on.
Paulistano Chair
Brazilian Sculpture Museum
We set out for a tour of São Paulo. I reminded myself of the Brancusi myth. He marched from Romania to France to discover his purpose an an artist. I remembered the Tadao Ando myth. He marched across Europe to engage and discover the greatness of architecture. In real time I saw Paulo Mendes lead his devoted followers across his Brazilian São Paulo. His real life experiences mattered.
A Mysterious image inside the Sculpture Museum
We saw “Niemeyer’s, Lina Bo Bardi’s and more. But most importantly we saw Mendes share the streets of São Paulo like an anthropologist might share the findings of the French Chauvet Caves. Brazilian preservation and everything prehistoric mattered to this fighter. We were immersed in the finer points of everything Paulo Mendes. A dreamy education that was just beginning.
The afternoon ended. We made our way to a local restaurant for dinner. After, he insisted on walking us to our hotel. The night fell and wild São Paulo descended. Hundreds from the squalor of backstreets approached. Mendes motioned to us. We were to follow his bob and weave through the open plaza. His boxer stood front and center. If I was to name the moment, it would be the Paulistano Dance. We arrived at our hotel. Paulo reminded us to meet him at the appointed hour tomorrow. “Stay safe”.
That night I received a phone call from the Mexican architect Ricardo Legorretta.
We were trying to negotiate a commission outside of the city. A house he designed for unique clients. It never worked out. He asked me how I was enjoying São Paulo. I spoke about Paulo Mendes, and my fantastic moment in Brazil. I mentioned the city was like a Brazilian Los Angeles. It has much to offer. I try to grasp what I can in life’s minutiae.
The next day we met at the home that Paulo Mendes da Rocha built for his family. The rest of the day as we toured his designs we considered what his vision might mean to the greater São Paulo and a greater Brazil. We had a master class in architecture in a few hours. Our heads were spinning with visual purpose.
The morning departure: My assistant Koji was to take off for Tokyo, and I was to return to New York. Before we left behind some of the São Paulo mysteries and more, we looked at each other with that expression that could only be read as; “what just happened”.
It is rare when people share what they can share. But when they do, life as it is supposed to be whispers into your heart for a lifetime.
Inside Paulo Mendes home