Mat-building and Memphis S.A. Industrial: formal, spatial and construcitive system 1960-1970

Abstract

The industry Memphis S.A. (1976) is an exemplar architectural design of industrial heritage and Modern Brazilian Architecture in the South that, for different aspects of its project, deserves attention and appreciation. For 45 years the company has been operating in structures conceived by the architects Cláudio Luiz Araújo and Cláudia Obino Corrêa with the participation of Uruguayan engineers Eladio Dieste and Eugenio Montañez, whose technological innovations at the time can be verified both from the point of view of environmental performance and spatial flexibility, as well as the plastic effect of the roofing solution. Not only a well-founded look at its construction, based on primary sources, contributes to reaffirm the relevance of the work, but a comprehensive understanding of its historical insertion sheds light on this still little known project. In this sense, the contextualization of the building in relation to both local connections with the Plata Region and the technique of reinforced ceramics, as well as theoretical and design notions emerging in the European context synthesized in the expression mat-building in the 1970s, provide new elements for the analysis of its formal, spatial and constructive systems.