Catherine Seavitt examines two rarely addressed moments in the career of Roberto Burle Marx (1909–1994): his absence from the initial planning and execution of Brasília in 1960, and his later affiliation with Brazil's military dictatorship as a member of the Conselho Federal de Cultura in the late 1960s and early 1970s. For Seavitt, any discussion of Brasília and Roberto Burle Marx must acknowledge these episodes. Burle Marx executed three significant landscapes for the military government's new ministries in Brasília, including two ministry palace gardens at the head of the monumental axis and a grand triangular plaza, Praça dos Cristais, at the army headquarters in the military sector, all in collaboration with architect Oscar Niemeyer. Commissioned in 1967 by the very Ministério do Exército that controlled the regime, the Praça dos Cristais was envisioned as a vast military parade ground, facing Niemeyer's monumental complex of the Quartel-General do Exército and inaugurated in 1973.

This talk draws on Seavitt's book Depositions: Roberto Burle Marx and Public Landscapes under Dictatorship (University of Texas Press, 2023), supported by a 2017 grant from the Graham Foundation, and is presented in conjunction with Latinitudes: A Collection of Latin American Modern Architecture by Leonardo Finotti, on view at the Graham Foundation through July 18, 2026.

Catherine Seavitt is Meyerson Professor and Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design. She is the faculty codirector of the McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology and creative director of the department’s LA+ Journal. A registered architect and landscape architect, she is a fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, the American Institute of Architects, the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture, and the American Academy in Rome. Her research explores urban landscapes, post-industrial sites, toxicity, and inventive plant knowledge, with a focus on actionable responses to the climate crisis and decarbonization. Seavitt’s books include Depositions: Roberto Burle Marx and Public Landscapes under Dictatorship (University of Texas Press, 2023); Structures of Coastal Resilience, with Guy Nordenson and Julia Chapman (Island Press, 2018); and Four Corridors, with Guy Nordenson and Paul Lewis (Hatje Cantz, 2019).


Image:  Roberto Burle Marx, aerial view of the Crystal Plaza garden for the Ministry of the Army with Oscar Niemeyer's Army Headquarters complex seen beyond, 1972, Brasília, Brazil. Courtesy of the Arquivo Público do Distrito Federal.

For more information on the exhibition, Latinitudes
A Collection of Latin American Modern Architecture, click here.

Patricio del Real presents his book, Constructing Latin America. Architecture, Politics, and Race at the Museum of Modern Art (Yale University Press, 2022)—a nuanced look at how, through architecture exhibitions, this New York institution became a key agent in cultural politics in the United States and in the consolidation of “Latin American architecture” as a modernist category. Del Real demonstrates how The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)’s curatorial activities generated and naturalized “Latin America” not only as a stylistic and cultural variant of international modernism but also as a racializing concept at a critical global conjuncture. The idea of “Latin American architecture” was seminal for the interpretation of modern architecture in the twentieth century and, moreover, for MoMA’s international projection as cultural arbiter in the Cold War period. It remains an active category that underpins studies on architectural modernism as a global phenomenon. Constructing Latin America was supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation in 2021. This talk is presented in conjunction with Latinitudes: A Collection of Latin American Modern Architecture by Leonardo Finotti, on view at the Graham Foundation through July 18, 2026.

Patricio del Real is known for his expertise in the field of architecture and architecture history, with a focus in the Americas. His work examines the intersections of buildings, politics and cultural identity. As an architectural historian, he contributes to a deeper understanding of the global dimensions of modernism, shedding light on its unique transformations and adaptations. One of his notable contributions is his focus on institutions and the transnational flows of ideas and practices and how these migrations have impacted both the development of architectural forms and the practices of architects in the second postwar period. Del Real is associate professor in the department of the history of art and architecture at Harvard University. Before his appointment at Harvard, he worked at The Museum of Modern Art’s architecture and design department on several temporary and collection exhibitions, and cocurated Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980.

Image: Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Fashion shoot in front of the Ministério da Educação e Saúde (MES), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as published in, “Urban Cotton: For Being at Ease,” Harper’s Bazaar, May 1946

For more information on the exhibition, Latinitudes
A Collection of Latin American Modern Architecture, click here.

PAST EVENTS

Photo: Ricardo E Adame

Chicago-based artist Irene Hsiao presents 氣, a piece developed for performances across the Chicago Architecture Biennial and part of Hsiao's project Mond(e): 月亮代表我的心, named for the Taiwanese love song "The moon represents my heart." In 氣, Hsiao performs in response to a sculpture by artist and fellow Biennial participant Dominic Kießling, accompanied by soprano Mickey Farès. Inspired by the shifting phases of the moon and the impermanence of architecture and anatomy, the work explores the interplay of air and energy—氣 (qi)—as Kießling’s sculpture receives, amplifies, and returns each movement and emotion in a cycle of mutual transformation. Mond(e): 月亮代表我的心 – 氣 was developed at the Graham Foundation in fall 2025 for presentations at the Narrow Bridge Arts Club and the Driehaus Museum and Hsiao returns to the Madlener House for the closing presentation.

Mond(e): 月亮代表我的心 is a year-long performance and community art project developed through Hsiao's 2025 residency at Hyde Park Art Center, creating site-specific performances with new collaborators that evolve in reference to the moon's periodic phases and its influence. This program is partially supported by an Individual Artists Program Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, as well as a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, from federal funds through the National Endowment for the Arts.

Irene Hsiao creates dance and performance through object-driven inquiry with museum spaces, exhibitions, and artworks. She is the inaugural Artist in Residence at the Smart Museum, first Artist in Residence at 21c Museum Hotel Chicago, first Resident Artist at the Heritage Museum of Asian Art, a Radicle Resident at Hyde Park Art Center, and the first artist in residence at the Chinese Fine Arts Society.

Dominic Kießling is a visual artist whose practice transforms lightweight materials into large-scale kinetic installations animated by fans, hair dryers, or human performance. Born in Dresden in 1984, he studied industrial design before working for a decade in motion and stage design in Berlin. In 2019, he returned to Dresden to focus on analogue art, experimenting with everyday materials and immersive sculptural forms. In 2023, he established his studio in a former factory building to pursue one of his most ambitious projects. Starting with little more than plastic bags and a hair dryer, Kießling developed a dynamic aesthetic that blurs the line between object and organism. His work continues to explore themes of transformation, movement, and material tension.

Mickey Farès is a Chicago-based soprano and improviser with a rich cultural heritage rooted in Venezuela, Spain, and Lebanon. Trained in classical opera performance, her vocal practice explores the full elasticity of the human voice—stretching its expressive limits and weaving together a diverse range of sonic textures. Her improvisational style draws on the raw spontaneity of free jazz and the rich emotionality of Spanish folkloric singing, creating a unique and deeply embodied sound language. Collaborating with movement artists has become central to her work, where the interplay of physical and vocal expression allows for a dynamic exchange of energy between performers. At the heart of her artistic process is a commitment to shared energy—how it is passed, shaped, and amplified among collaborators. For Mickey, improvisation is a playground for presence, curiosity, and connection.

As Fragmented Manifestos enters its final week, the Graham Foundation Bookshop is offering 20% off all purchases from Saturday, February 21, through Friday, February 28, plus a Chicago Architecture Biennial tote bag with purchases over $100.

The Graham Foundation Bookshop features a curated selection of publications by Foundation grantees, alongside new, historically significant, and rare books on architecture, art, urbanism, and related fields. In addition to monographs, exhibition catalogues, and theory-based titles, the bookshop carries local and international journals and magazines. Chicago-based designer Ania Jaworska designed the bookshop in 2013.

Sale Hours:
Sat, Feb 21 — 12–8 p.m.
Wed, Feb 25 — 12–5 p.m.
Thu, Feb 26 — 12–5 p.m.
Fri, Feb 27 — 12–5 p.m.
Sat, Feb 28 — 12–5 p.m.

On view in the galleries: Fragmented Manifestos, part of the sixth edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, SHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change, an exhibition bringing together episodes from recent architectural history through drawings, writings, diagrams, installations, and proposals by Amancio Williams, Sergio Prego, Anne Tyng, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Charles Jencks, Stan Allen, and a collaboration between MOS and Tony Cokes.

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