Raul Di Pace: Architecture

Provides a fresh perspective and contemporary analysis of the architecture and design of Brazilian architect Raul di Pace. Text in English and Portuguese.

Raul di Pace’s passion for architecture was ignited through a very strong response to a design-based heritage that stretches back decades through the architectural and design works of his father Ugo di Pace and grandfather Vittorio di Pace, who were both responsible for hundreds of high-profile projects in both Europe and Brazil. After graduating from architecture school in Brazil, Raul di Pace spent many years traveling in Europe, and then the United States to see the work of several of the world’s most renowned architects, such as Wassili and Hans Luckhardt, Peter Behrens, Bruno Taut, Eric Mendelsohn, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Paul Rudolph, Eero Saarinen, Richard Neutra, Louis I. Kahn, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. He ventured through Africa, Macau, Hong Kong, and Japan to see works by Tadao Ando, Fumihiko Maki, Shigeru Ban, Toyo Ito, and Kenzō Tange. Raul has always been fascinated by the highly contemporary lines in the works of these luminaries; many other architects also contributed a great deal to the expansion of his architectonic repertoire, such as Antoni Gaudí, Affonso Eduardo Reidy, Renzo Piano, Álvaro Siza Vieira, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and Norman Foster, among many others. After many decades, Raul’s professional practice has accumulated significant experience and developed an enriching architectural language; he continues to evolve and the search for new solutions is what motivates him. He strives for a language with pure and direct lines. His works--covering numerous residential projects and other renovation, adaptation, and restoration of commercial and public projects in Brazil and abroad--are characterized by amplitude in the environment and a lightness in form, the integration between the internal and external environment; a combination of nature and the artificial, always taking care to flood the spaces with natural light; revealing Raul’s free-spirited approach and aesthetics.