Anthropophagic Affairs: Le Corbusier, Paulo Prado and New World Revolutions

DANIELA ORTIZ DOS SANTOS

ORTIZ DOS SANTOS, Daniela. “Anthropophagic Affairs: Le Corbusier, Paulo Prado and New World Revolutions”. LC. Revue de recherches sur Le Corbusier, n. 3, (March 2021) pp. 62-75, ISSN 2660-7212, <https://polipapers.upv.es/index.php/LC/article/view/14807>.

This paper explores Le Corbusier’s relation to the American continent, yet with a particular focus on the visions he created before his trip of 1929. Not only did his vision go far beyond the sphere of the United States, but it also proved to be influenced by individuals with whom he shared admiration and affinity. This web of people encompassed patrons, politicians, painters and poets. Brazilian businessman Paulo Prado is here revealed as crucial protagonist, and for the first time amply discussed through this approach to Le Corbusier and the Americas. Prado went beyond the agency of those engaging lectures and housing commissions overseas. Primarily linked to the image of a financial patron, Prado’s ideas of modernity and São Paulo identity were often obfuscated by the work of Antropofagia movement founding member Oswald de Andrade. And yet, Prado’s social, political and intellectual capital was critically important for the 1920s economic and cultural exchanges between Europe and Brazil. While examining the encounters between Prado and Le Corbusier, a new window of investigation and periodization is opened in order to construct Le Corbusier’s connections with an elite eager to create a fresh interest in the cultural economy of the Transatlantic scene.