On Imagination: Carla Juaçaba on Recognition, Sensitivity, and Overcoming Times of Crisis

By Julia Gamolina

Since 2000, Carla Juaçaba developed her independent practice of architecture and research-based in Rio de Janeiro. Her office is currently engaged in both cultural programs and private projects, which include the Atelier House, Rio Bonito House, Varanda House, Santa Teresa House, and a couple of exhibition designs. The ephemeral Pavilion Humanidade 2012 was conceived with the theater director Bia Lessa and built for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012. Carla Juaçaba is constantly part of the academic and teaching realms, research studies, and Lectures: Harvard GSD; Columbia University GSAPP; Academia di Architettura di Mendrisio. Workshop at IUAV di Venezia 2014 and 2020 where she won the best studio for public space projects; Jury at BIAU Bienal Ibero Americana in Madrid 2012 and 2019.

She won the first edition of the international prize arcVision Women and Architecture 2013 in Italy, and the first prize of AREA Architectural Review Emerging Architecture Award 2018. She was invited to Venice Architecture Biennale 2018 with the BALLAST project, curated by Grafton Architects, and built one of the Vatican Chapels for the Holy See Pavilion, curated by Francesco Dal Co that is now part of the Italian heritage. She is now living in London, teaching at Mendrisio Accademia in Switzerland, and is currently a Ph.D. student at ETSAM-UPM-Madrid. In her interview, Carla talks about the study and practice of architecture in both Brazil and abroad, advising those just starting their careers to find their passions outside of architecture as well.

How did you grow up, and how did your interest in architecture first develop? What did you learn about yourself in studying it?

My interest in art and architecture certainly came from contact with my grandmother who was an artist and had a wonderful library. I thought the whole universe around her was wonderful, but what I really liked was to see her doing things, really working. I thought it was so brave and beautiful.

I studied at a very chaotic but experimental university where many visual artists were teaching, but I always wanted to "escape from the subject" somehow. The study of architecture wasn't enough, or I felt that something was missing. So, I looked for what was missing in other disciplines — theater, art and exhibition design. In the very beginning I had contact with Peter Brook’s theatre and I began to understand our discipline through another discipline. Through his work and his critical attitude towards the existent’s theatrical spaces and deeply critical of architects, I understood how a space can be political, democratic and essential.

How did you get your start in the field?

When I was a student I worked with the architect Gisela Magalhães who did many exhibition designs in the historical museums of Brazil. I've never worked in an architecture office, and after working with her, I thought I would continue working with Exhibition Design, not architecture. But some friends asked me to design a house, so as soon as I graduated I was already building. And always, in parallel, doing exhibitions design, until today.

Humanidade Pavilion, photography by Leonardo Finotti.

Tell me how your work evolved, and you with it.

First, the houses that I worked on were made by hand — in a way I was learning the profession while building it. Then, most important moment was the design of the Humanidade Pavilion together with theatre director Bia Lessa. It was an unexpected commisssion, which happened when Brazil was well, and everything was possible.

Then the most recent project, the chapel for the Vatican pavilion, was supposed to be a temporary building and it is now part of Italy's heritage. I also think prizes are very important — they give you and your work value and open up many possibilities.

Where are you in your career today?

My career is also academic, I am teaching at Mendrisio Accademia in Switzerland, doing a Ph.D. at ETSAM-UPM-Madrid. I recently moved to London, but I am still working in Brazil.

So, it is a different moment for me to be away from my country, but still connected. At the same time profiting all the echoes of the Vatican Chapel here in Europe.

“The study of architecture wasn’t enough, or I felt that something was missing. So, I looked for what was missing in other disciplines — theater, art and exhibition design.”

— Carla Juaçaba

What are you working on at the moment?

I am working on the Project “Flor de Café” in Brazil, a social project that has united small farmers to add value to the national product. There will be a museum to recount the history of coffee, a school, and it will also be part of agricultural tourism. Designing a couple of houses in Brazil.

And working on a project in Switzerland, “Open House” in Geneve, in which architects and artists were called to make temporary shelters.

What does success mean to you?

Success helps me to keep going. Success to me is recognition, because it is that recognition that is a natural step to then receive commissions and invitations to teach and to lecture.

Vatican Chapels, photography by Federico Cairoli.

Looking back at it all, what have been the biggest challenges? How did you manage through a disappointment or a perceived setback?

The biggest challenge was to continue in the profession during times of crisis. In Brazil, except the flourishing years before the Olympic games, it was a difficulty to maintain an office only with single family houses and exhibition design. The sensation that at any moment I would have to give up the profession was a constant.

Who are you admiring right now and why?

I admire profoundly Gilles Clement, and his Planetary Garden. I think he has a deep knowledge of what he is doing, and he does not design a garden, he conceives the Planetary garden as whole ecosystem. And the main question now, as an architect, is how to coexist with his Planetary Garden.

“...there is only one resource with so much power: our imagination.”

— Carla Juaçaba

What is the impact you’d like to have on the world? What is your core mission?

When I first had contact with Peter Brooks theater, I said to myself: I would like to do architecture as he does his Theater. It was from him that I have learned what essential means. I just want to be closer to a sensitivity like this.

Finally, what advice do you have for those starting their career?

To find something else to be passionate besides architecture. It is a wonderful way to reflect about our own discipline.

Would your advice be any different for women?

Yes, I still think that women have a bigger obstacle than men, so they need to concentrate more energy to overcome it. but I think there is only one resource with so much power: our imagination.