Why should we be interested in Isay Weinfeld?
He is a Brazilian architect, who still practices, and whose work is little known in Europe. Wrongly.
Classified in the current tropical modernism, he refuses to be affiliated with a style of architecture and even less claims "a Brazilian style".
Its architecture is minimalist, contemporary, eclectic. Among its projects are buildings, shops (the Havaianas shops in particular), bookstores, villas, hotels, restaurants, offices.
Its approach is global: architecture, layout, furniture, right down to the choice of glasses in the case of a restaurant. He thinks about the project in great detail. Like a painter or a director.
And it's a movie, by the way, Wild Strawberries Ingmar Bergman seen in college class, which sparked this urge to create. Even if he took the path of architecture, cinema and video remain a passion. He has directed several short films. He has also set up exhibitions.
He has been practicing for 45 years, and yet Isay Weinfeld does not like architects or talk about architecture. He much prefers to talk about music (his greatest passion) or cinema, and enjoys being surrounded by artists.
He masters to perfection the less is more, sublimated by its choice of materials, its mixtures of wood, associated with the green of nature. A vintage designer armchair, if it is sufficient on its own, will be the highlight of the place.
He rejects the idea of an “architectural recipe” which would apply to different projects. Isay Weinfeld likes to take the time to get his customers talking until he can identify perfectly who they are, how they live, what they like, their habits, until knowing where they have dinner and where 'they regularly receive guests. His projects reflect the personalities of his sponsors so much that he has often said that he would hate to live in one of his houses. Quite simply because he didn't create them for him.
In this perfectly well edited book by Gestalten, we find more than fifty projects analyzed to understand this talented, prolific, discreet architect, who speaks little about him and whose achievements are still too confidential. And that's why we have to be interested in Isay Weinfeld!
Isay Weinfeld - An Architect from Brazil available here.
Text and photo: Carol / Biutiful Creative Studio