Achillina (Lina) Bo Bardi studied drawing at the Artistic Lyceum in her native Rome and graduated in 1940 with a degree in architecture from the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Rome. She moved to Milan, where she worked with the famous architect Gió Ponti, director of the Milan Triennales and Domus magazine. Lina soon became editor of Domus magazine and joined the resistance to the German occupation during the Second World War, collaborating with the Italian Communist Party (PCI). Together with the critic Bruno Zevi, she founded the magazine A Cultura della Vita in Milan.
In 1946, she married the critic and art historian Pietro Maria Bardi. They both decided to leave for Brazil, where they settled. When Pietro Maria Bardi was invited by Assis Chateaubriand to found and direct the São Paulo Museum of Art, Masp, Lina Bo Bardi designed the museum’s facilities, including the folding chair made of wood and leather for the auditorium, considered “the first modern chair in Brazil”. In 1948, she founded Studio d’Arte Palma with Italian architect Giancarlo Palanti, which produced plywood furniture and “popular Brazilian” materials such as chintz and leather. In 1950, she created Habitat magazine, which lasted until 1954. In 1951, she designed the couple’s home in the Morumbi district of São Paulo, soon to be nicknamed the “glass house”.
In 1957, she began designing the new Masp headquarters on Avenida Paulista, with an open plaza-belvedere on the first floor, suspending the building with a 70-meter span. In 1958, she moved to Salvador to run the Bahia Museum of Modern Art (MAM/BA), where she carried out the project to restore the Solar do Unhão; during this period she came into contact with Pierre Verger and Glauber Rocha. Returning to São Paulo, she created museum supports made from second-hand pine boards and held the exhibition “A Mão do Povo Brasileiro” (The Hand of the Brazilian People) in 1969; she adapted the Sesc Pompéia building in 1977, an old factory, and also designed the Teatro Oficina.
Public Collections
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP), São Paulo Cultural Center (CCSP), Sesc Pompeia and Lina Bo and P.M. Bardi Institute.
