21 Topic Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (MAM), Rio de Janeiro (1953), A. E. Reidy
between structure and construction, orienting its visible expression or appearance. In opposition, the term “atectonic” came to mean the operation whereby a significant interaction between load and support is visually blurred or neglected, like in the late Niemeyer’sworks. As a strategy of architectural composition, the tectonic potential of a building can be fully achieved through the mutual interdependence and harmony between structure, form and construction6. The complete flow of this potential would arise from the displacement of the expressive power of the entire building to its constructive features, looking to amplify its presence in relation to the other parties and to articulate the poetic and cognitive aspects of its substance. Making intentional use of this procedure, some Brazilian architects have produced buildings of great tectonic expression, pursued through the formal prominence and intentional plastic expression placed on bearing or technical elements. In Brazil, this way of solving plastic and technical problems on construction was greatly favoured by the development and dissemination of reinforced concrete technology. Undoubtedly, at the beginning of the last century reinforced concrete construction was by far the most convenient technology for a country that still didn’t have a technologically
developed industry, nor skilled labour7. A large supply of skilled craftsmanship and the low cost of its components allowed Brazilian architects to use reinforced concrete as a plastically expressive building material par excellence. Their preference can be seen in the largescale design of the bearing elements and the extensive use of raw concrete as closing and finishing as well8. To exemplify this assertion, one can pick out the repetition and prominence of the bearing structure that governs the external composition of MAM in Rio de Janeiro(1953) (see 002), designed by Affonso Eduardo
Conjunto JK, Belo Horizonte (1951 – 1968), O. Niemeyer