Lina Bo Bardi. Il diritto al brutto e il SESC-fàbrica da Pompéia.

The book is organized in three parts: in the first chapter, starting from the title of an exhibition organised by Lina Bo Bardi at the SESC in 1982, where «the right to ugliness» is described as «the essential basis of many civilizations, from Africa to Asia, which have never experienced the "concept" of what is beautiful, the concentration camp of Western civilization», Luciano Semerani develops a reflection on this ‘slogan’ to explains its deep cultural and political meaning and like for Bo Bardi it implied taking a position on some important general questions, which are currently evermore pressing: a political question: the relationship between the salon (high-culture, Academia and Western traditions) and the forest, inhabited by what is «different» (where the aforementioned wildness resides); a scientific-philosophical question: the notion of time; a question of expressive language: as architectural composition. In the second chapter “Two exhibitions”, written in common, we document the two anthological exhibitions on Lina Bo Bardi that we curated and presented in 2004 at the Ca’ Pesaro Museum of Modern Art and in 2006 at the San Paolo Art Museum. Through them, we wanted in particular to highlight the grafting of a new identity, Brazilian, onto the cultural identity of her country of origin, Italy, the playful spirit and the surreal climate that runs through her works, and to document as much her endless creativity in all the arts (architecture, set design, theatre costume, furniture and jewellery design, drawing, exhibitions and journalism) as her civil commitment as an intellectual and architect. We thought we could in this way promote two general interests, which Bardi’s architecture conveys, one concerning the meeting and mixing of cultures and the other the legacy of the avant garde. Through a wide selection of her drawings, objects and architectural work these two exhibitions investigated the project strategies from Lina Bo Bardi. In the third and last charter all these topics are further developed. The blend from her modern matrix and the Brazilian popular culture are the fundaments of a body of ideas which find a clear expression in the architectural design and the labor for the Sesc Pompéia Factory(1977-1986). In “The Sesc Pompéia Factory”, I tries to identify the projectual proceedings applied by the architect in this work. How she establishes a close relationship of necessity between the parts of the building and between the old and the new. Focusing on the concept of fragment, I try to explain the link between memory, emotions and ruins, as well as to develop a reflection about the present situation of Lina Bo Bardi's architectonical legacy and its insertion in the contemporary dynamic of the city.