Rubens de Mendonça House

João Batista Vilanova Artigas – Born in Curitiba in June 1915, João Batista Vilanova Artigas moved to São Paulo and graduated in Architecture from the Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo in 1937. He was the founder of the Architecture and Urbanism Faculty of the University of São Paulo in 1948, in which he led, later in 1962, a movement for educational reform that influenced other architecture faculties in Brazil. He was a fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation in 1947. A militant of popular movements in Brazil, he was persecuted by the military dictatorship and expelled from the University in 1969, along with other Brazilian professors. The International Union of Architects – UIA – awarded his work twice (Jean Tschumi Award – 1972 and Auguste Perret Award – 1985, posthumously).