Associate Professor of Architecture Pablo Meninato, PhD, received a 2024–2025 Fulbright US Scholar award for a research and publication project on Italo-Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi, titled “Unpacking Lina Bo Bardi: Politics, Multidisciplinarity, and Gender.” 

Meninato’s research will focus on three areas in Bo Bardi’s life and work: her social and political initiatives; her interdisciplinarity, including anthropology, ethnic studies, performing arts, literature, and craftsmanship; and her position both as a female architect in a patriarchal society and her consideration as the first Latin American female architect to achieve a level of recognition and popularity that transcends the continent's borders.

The research will also include two trips to the cities in Brazil where Bo Bardi spent most of her career: São Paulo and Bahia. Meninato will spend about two months in each city, during the summers of 2024 and 2025. 

Below is an excerpt from Meninato’s proposal: 

“Upon settling in São Paulo in the late 1950s, Lina Bo Bardi embarked on an intensely transdisciplinary journey, alternately or simultaneously working as an architect, urban planner, art curator, landscape architect, journalist, furniture designer, architectural critic, set designer, educator, and political activist. Although she gained recognition for her engagement in a diverse range of endeavors, her most indelible and profound mark remains in the realm of architecture. Notable among the buildings she designed are her Glass House, the Museum of Art of São Paulo (MASP), the SESC Pompéia complex in São Paulo, and the Museum of Art (MAMB) in Salvador de Bahia.”

Meninato's book, Urban Labyrinths: Informal Settlements, Architecture, and Social Change in Latin America (Routledge, coauthor Gregory Marinic), was published in March 2024. The book provides an in-depth analysis of intervention and upgrading efforts in informal settlements across five Latin American cities (Rio de Janeiro, Medellin, São Paulo, Tijuana, and Buenos Aires).

In addition to the Fulbright, Meninato received various awards supporting this research initiative, including the Summer Research Grant, a Dean's Grant, and the Presidential Humanities and Arts Research Program Award.