Paulo Mendes da Rocha Symposium

Paulo Mendes da Rocha Symposium, with Professor Angelo Bucci, Vanessa Grossman, and Ciro Miguel.
Part of the MIT Spring 2026 Architecture Lecture Series. 
Presented with the Architecture and Urbanism Group

Vanessa Grossman is an architect, historian, and curator whose work examines the entanglements of architecture with ideology, governance, and socio-environmental justice. Her research focuses on Cold War–era modern architecture, tracing the geopolitical dynamics of planning and politics in France and Brazil while situating key figures within broader transnational contexts across Latin America and the Global South. More recently, she has explored the historical and spatial connections between the Amazon rainforest and the North American Rust Belt. She is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design and serves as Exhibitions Review Editor for the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (JSAH). Her publications include A Concrete Alliance: Communism and Modern Architecture in Postwar France (Yale University Press, 2024) and the co-edited Constructed Geographies: Paulo Mendes da Rocha (Casa da Arquitectura/Yale, 2024). Additional books include the co-authored Oscar Niemeyer en France: Un exil créatif (Éditions du Patrimoine, 2021) and the co-edited Everyday Matters: Contemporary Approaches to Architecture (Ruby Press, 2021), AUA, une architecture de l'engagement, 1960–1985 (Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine/Éditions Dominique Carré, 2015), and Modernity: Promise or Menace? France, 101 Buildings, 1914–2014 (Institut français/Éditions Dominique Carré, 2014). Forthcoming titles include the co-edited Reframing Lina Bo Bardi: Architecture as an Expanded Field (Routledge, 2026) and Parti pris. Architectes et communisme en France, 1958–1980 (Éditions de La Villette, 2026). Grossman has co-curated exhibitions and programs at institutions worldwide, including Centro Cultural São Paulo, Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine, Delft University of Technology, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Sesc 24 de Maio, and the Venice Architecture Biennale. Her most recent exhibition, Constructed Geographies: Paulo Mendes da Rocha (Casa da Arquitectura, 2023–2024), co-curated at Casa da Arquitectura in Portugal, with Jean-Louis Cohen, followed her role as co-curator of the 12th International Architecture Biennale of São Paulo, titled Todo dia/Everyday (2019).

Ciro Miguel (São Paulo, Brasil)
Architect, photographer, and historian based in Zurich and São Paulo. He holds a professional diploma from the University of São Paulo (FAU USP), a Master’s degree from Columbia University (GSAPP), and a Doctorate from the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta) at ETH Zurich. His research explores alternative narratives of the built environment, using photography and visual archives. Ciro was co-curator of Todo dia/Everyday, the 12th International Architecture Biennale of São Paulo (2019), and his work has been exhibited at the Venice and São Paulo Biennales, as well as at institutions such as the Architekturmuseum der TU München, S AM Basel, the Center for Architecture New York, the Pavillon de l’Arsenal, the Het Nieuwe Instituut, and Casa da Arquitectura. Recent publications include: “Staging Civicness in Brasília” (Materia Arquitectura, no. 29, 2025), “An Iconic Order: The Columns of Oscar Niemeyer,” (ARQ, no.119, 2025) and “Pinacoteca do Estado,” in Constructed Geographies: Paulo Mendes da Rocha (Casa da arquitectura/Yale Press, 2024). Co-editor of Everyday Matters: Contemporary Approaches to Architecture (Ruby Press, 2022), and gta Papers Amazônía (gta Verlag, 2025). 

This lecture will be held in person in Long Lounge, 7-429 and will be streamed on YouTube.

Lectures are free and open to the public. Lectures will be held Thursdays at 6 PM ET in 7-429 (Long Lounge) and streamed online unless otherwise noted.