"Spaceship vibes" of Eduardo Longo's Casa Bola form setting for São Paulo exhibition
Brazilian design exhibition Aberto is hosting its fifth edition in Casa Bola, architect Eduardo Longo's globular self-built 1970s São Paulo home.
Aberto/05 is the fifth iteration of the platform's art and design show, which has been staged in a range of modernist buildings, including Le Corbusier's Maison La Roche in Paris.
This year, the exhibition features installations, sculpture and painting by 50 creatives housed within the 1979 Casa Bola, which demonstrated Longo's utopian architectural vision for an urban community, where residents would live in pods suspended above the street.
The building stands out on São Paulo's bustling Faria Lima for its spherical ferrocement facade, positioned above three floors of separate gallery-style subterranean spaces that still serve as Longo's home and office today. A bright-yellow slide snakes around the sphere as an alternative to the winding staircase.
Among the pieces is a striking aluminium curtain by Spanish artist Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, positioned at the entrance of one of the floors.
Characterised by a playfully cut-out coated-steel frame, the curtain was one of many works created specifically for Casa Bola.
"The pieces developed for the exhibition establish a direct dialogue not only with the spherical form of the house, but also with its materiality, its lightness of tone and the sense of humour that is so characteristic of Eduardo's architecture," Aberto founder and curator Filipe Assis told Dezeen.
Brazilian artist Sandra Cinto painted two works for the home, which Assis described as perfectly complementary to Casa Bola's "spaceship vibes", while German-Brazilian artist Janaina Tschape also produced a large-scale mural for the exhibition.
While most of the pieces are displayed below the building's spherical volume, works are also on show in this space.
Multimedia paintings by artists Laís Amaral, Paloma Bosquê, and Tatiana Chalhoub were hung to "engage in the building's curves and angles".
"These works, among others, demonstrate how the artists engaged thoughtfully with both the physical and symbolic dimensions of Casa Bola, creating pieces that feel intrinsically connected to its identity," said Assis.
Except for last year's show at Maison La Roche, the first three editions of Aberto were held at other Brazilian architectural landmarks, including Oscar Niemeyer's Casa Oscar – the architect's only residential project in São Paulo.
"Having explored several landmarks of modernist architecture, I felt it was the ideal moment to innovate once again and to present the singular, disruptive universe of Eduardo Longo," reflected Assis. "He's an architect I consider a true genius."
Aberto/05 is the first of the Aberto shows where the curatorial team and the participating designers had the opportunity to work with a living architect, which Assis said proved "invaluable".
"It has allowed us to delve far deeper into the conceptual foundations of the building, to hear first-hand accounts of its creation, and to understand the intentions behind each decision," he said.
São Paulo features many examples of Brazilian modernism, with architects working adaptively with the structures.
Last year, Brazilian design practice Estúdio BRA reconfigured an apartment in the city's Niemeyer-designed Copan building to make the most of its iconic facade.
The photography is by Ruy Teixeira.
Aberto/05 takes place from 7 March to 31 May 2026 at Avenida Brigadeiro Faria Lima, 2889, Itaim Bibi, São Paulo, 01452-000, Brazil. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.
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