Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo: The Allegorical Shift in Polarity, Frontality and The Inner Body of a Renovation Project

In 1940, Walter Benjamin wrote in his essay Über den Begriff der Geschichte about his impression of the Angel of History, whose face is turned towards the past and who sees one single catastrophe where we see the appearance of a chain of events. With such a notion, Benjamin not only conveys to us his idea of the irresistible force of progression, but also provides us with an angle on history that is unlike the one most of us are familiar with. Instead of viewing history as linear, as scholars in the classical model of historicism do, Benjamin’s perspective is shifted ninety degrees from the classical viewing plane. In so doing, he shows that what we see in history can be rendered as something else. Moreover, the very move of shifting the viewing angle is itself allegorical.

The allegorical shift, when considered from the field of architecture, can be associated with the concepts of polarity and the frontality of a building. It is worth looking into the effects and meanings behind such a shift. To illustrate this, Paulo Mendes da Rocha’s renovation project on the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo provides an interesting case.

Recommended citation: Zhang, H. (2018). Pinacoteca Do Estado De São Paulo: The Allegorical Shift in Polarity, Frontality and The Inner Body of a Renovation Project. In N. E. Castrillón (Ed.), Oblique: Critical Conservation (OBL/QUE) Vol. 2 (pp. 12-19). Harvard Graduate School of Design. ISBN 978-0692968284.
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