José Zanine Caldas
Text by Maria Cecília Loschiavo dos Santos, Amanda Beatriz Palma de Carvalho, and Lauro Cavalcanti
The first full-scale bilingual publication celebrating the significant career of the pioneering modern Brazilian designer and architect José Zanine Caldas.
One of the most important figures in Brazilian material culture, José Zanine Caldas (1919–2001) left behind a diverse legacy in architecture, design, and art. His oeuvre includes maquettes built for architecture, industrial and handcrafted furniture, sculpture, landscaping and floriculture, low-income and elite housing designs, and research on the use and reuse of Brazilian woods. Much of Caldas’s aesthetic was based on his dialogue with vernacular craft and its construction practices, which stemmed in part from his lack of a traditional education.
Marking the centenary of his birth, R & Company is proud to present this first bilingual Portuguese-English publication to comprehensively study the many facets of José Zanine Caldas’s long and dynamic career. With an introduction by Zesty Meyers and essays by leading Brazilian scholars specialized in Zanine’s work, the book features a thorough survey of the designer’s furniture, design, interiors, and architecture with never-before-seen archival images from the collection of the Zanine family and lush photographic spreads.