Artigas pop-cult: considerações sobre a cabana primitiva, a casa pátio e quatro colunas de madeira

Giedion claims that the 1960´s architectures tend to adopt a sophisticated relationship with the past, flirting with random details that are appropriated in a surrealistic way, in order to give poetic expression to the projects. Designed by João Batista Vilanova Artigas in 1967, the Berquó House resumes the ancestral theme of the patio, in this case circumscribed by four wood trunks that support the reinforced concrete structure of the house. This solution may suggest an allegorical approach to the primitive hut paradigm as proposed by Laugier, meaning, as the principle and measure of all architecture. To better understand the multiplicity of cult references put forward by this house this paper proposes several approaches: to reread the text Artigas chose to publish in 1969 along with the Berquó and the Mendes André house, to compare it with two patio houses designed by Sert; to advocate the possibility of understanding Artigas later reference about this house as “pop” as having a double sense: the irony of the pop-art of the 1960´s and the popular house, as a symbol of the original or primitive dwelling; to suggest a closeness between this house and a certain, quotidian, feminine pragmatism. This text also peremptorily refuses to accept that this, or any other projects designed by Artigas, should be ever understood as only deriving from a simplistic connection between political situation and architectural and artistic creation.