Modernist Lucio Costa Stars in Soap Opera

Brasilian TV soap operas, known as ‘novelas’, are an essential part of Brasilian culture and hold millions in a state of feverish anticipation and excitement. Broadcast daily and epic in length they can continue for months and what seems like years on end. For the cultural elitist, they are irredeemably trite, trivial and stretch all notions of credibility to the point of complete absurdity. The on-line reviews for the recently released, Pedacos de Mim, Pieces of Me, bizarrely translated by Netflix as Desperate Lies, must have been penned by just such an individual. “One of the worst series I have ever seen. Ridiculous plot. Hack dialogue. Exaggerated melodrama. Amateur dramatics. Scarcely plausible….” It is a critique that entirely misses the point, for it is exactly these characteristics that make novelas so engaging and popular. Like a good anaesthetic, they offer a welcome release from the daily struggle to make ends meet, a soothing departure into the realms of fantasy fiction. I am not a huge fan, principally because I don’t have the patience, but I watched Desperate Lies which is mercifully only seventeen hours long. The plot centres on a woman who is pregnant with twins from two biological fathers. You can complete the scenario. The star of the soap opera however, until the location shifts, is Lucio Costa’s housing complex in Rio’s Parque Guinle. Originally planned as a sequence of six blocks that step down across the park, only three were eventually built, Nova Sintra (1948), Bristol (1950), and Caledonia (1954). With a concrete structure elevated on pilotis, perforated ceramic  sunscreens, vertical painted louvres, stone clad gables, and open plan living rooms that overlook the park, it shows modern architecture at its best, light years from its deformation by the technological and economic imperatives of the capitalist building industry. As it turns out, it also doubles up as the ideal location for a tale of love, betrayal, revenge and murder, the narrative mainstays of all memorable novelas.