The modern image as a producer and product of modern architecture: Marcel Gautherot’s and Mario Fontenelle’s documentary photographs of the construction of Brasilia

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the photographic images taken by Marcelle Gautherot and Mario Fontenelle for the publications brasília and Módulo, periodicals established during the construction of Brasília in the 1950s to justify the construction and to advertise the new capital of Brasília. These magazines promoted a new modern way of life and thus they served as an important documentation of the making of modern architecture in Brazil. The photographic documents published by these magazines reveal the photograph of the modern building as the main force as well as the vehicle in the production of a modern image. The representation of modern architecture was created through the photographic image that accompanied the modern discourse. Two photographers, who documented this process, Marcel Gautherot and Mario Fontenelle, created photographs of symbolic value. The modern image became a mix between photography and architecture whereas the two subjects require and benefit from one another. The photograph needs architecture to become the means of representation and architecture needs photography to sell the modern way of life. The examples of these two photographers thus make visible how the initial documentation process was used as a publicity image, becoming the work of art and finally a symbol of modernism.