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Apartment 61 is an experimental gallery apartment designed by MNMA Studio in reverence to mid-century Brazilian furniture manufacturers Forma and L’Atelier. The 100 sqm São Paulo residence is one of the city’s first modernist houses, built by artist Victor Brecheret around 1939 and later renovated by architect Rino Levi. The site is now operated as a ‘gallery house’ curated by the couple André Visockis and Vivian Lobato, displaying a refined collection of furniture and catering to avid collectors from all over the world.

Design and decor elements within Apartment 61 traverse the modernist movement that have shaped São Paulo’s architecture throughout the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s. MNMA didn’t aim for historical recreation, rather paying homage to the Forma and L’Atelier factories that opened in the 1950s through the study of furniture, photos, files, and testimonies.

The bones of Apartment 61 itself became the centre of the project. MNMA inserted a skeleton framework of metal beams that mirror the angles of the house. The frames form an installation all of their own, creating a dialogue that allows the original architecture to guide the additional furniture and pieces that were brought in externally to display.

São Paulo’s architecture is rooted in post-WWII history, with the industrial urbanization of major cities in an effort to build a modern Brazil. Foreign settlers in São Paulo brought a new wave of creative entrepreneurship and a renewed focus on aesthetics and design. Modernist furniture factories Forma, founded by Carlo Hauner, and L’Atelier, founded by Jorge Zalszupin, were among the avant-garde.

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