"Proves that contrary to post-modern beliefs and rhetoric and to what happened in the U.S. and in Europe, in the case of Brazil modern architecture was popular and inspired the production of buildings by non-architects, helping to mold a middle-class culture and a new system of values."--Vicente del Rio, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo "Fills an important gap in our understanding of not only how architecture is seen, understood, and reproduced by the population at large but, more specifically and importantly, the significance of modern and paradigmatic architecture to the public in Brazil."--Luis E. Carranza, Roger Williams University During the mid-twentieth century, Brazil as a country seemed to be fascinated with modernism. Middle-class people would read about it in popular newspapers and journals, then go about designing their own homes in the modernist style, using distinctive layouts and faccedil;ades. In other words, modernist architecture was the popular architecture of Brazil.

Fernando Luiz Lara investigates how and why modern architecture became so popular in his native country, tracking the path of the dissemination as well as the economic, cultural, and political conditions that made it possible. He views it as a direct extension of the optimism and relative stability that spread throughout the country beginning in the 1950s. This original and significant contribution to the field counters the traditional historiography of modernist architecture, and has broad applicability in examining the importance of the style throughout Latin America.