Tonight, Schlee‘s speech entitled Gracias a la vida pays tribute to his trajectory started at FAUrb and the lessons he took with him from Pelotas to USP, UnB and Iphan.
Old friends meet with lots of good humor, laughter and gratefulness. That was the mood brought by Schlee to our auditorium in this 50th anniversary celebration. A testimony of his personal trajectory was made, with a starting point in 1982 – his year of admission to Architecture and Urbanism graduation.
No more than 10 years old at the time of 1982, the School of Architecture and Urbanism, as Andrey made a point of calling it, was still shaping its shape. In that context, it was an avant-garde approach to study from architectural examples located in Brazil, and even more so, at local municipalities such as Pelotas and Jaguarão.
The floor was opened by the current unit’s director, Professor Maurício Polidori, with great satisfaction and celebration. Next, Ana Ó (Ana Lucia Costa de Oliveira) does the honors of introducing Andrey, her former student, who she invited herself for this speech – a both wonderful and strange dynamic of professors learning from students with great joy. Among the audience, there was the guest of honor Ester Gutierrez, a highly prestigious egress author and former undergraduate professor, who also taught very important subjects and had a great influence on Schlee’s education.
As for the presence of the current faculty of the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, we cite (in alphabetical order): Adriana Portella, Adriane Borda, Aline Montagna, Celia Gonsales, Celina Britto, Natalia Naoumova and Nirce Medvedovski. Among whom, many were graduate colleagues of the speaker as well.
The specialization in cultural heritage was the result of the direction established already in the undergraduate course in Pelotas, according to Schlee. As a good historian, he shared records from his personal library, which has materials from the cataloging of more than 8,000 Pelotas houses carried out during his master’s research, to images of his experiences alongside great names such as Niemeyer and Lelé at the University of Brasilia (UnB) and culminated in the listing of several local material and immaterial patrimonies that he declared as national or world historical heritage during his direction of IPHAN.
Currently, it should be noted that Iphan (Institute of National Historic and Artistic Heritage) is undergoing a current period of lag and scrapping after, in 2020, President Jair Bolsonaro fired Iphan professionals, removing even the presidency and several other members of the Institute. Andrey was also the target of these persecutions and has denounced, daily ever since, scandals from the last 2 years in the Brazilian political scene. For more information, follow Andrey Schlee’s Instagram account.
Let us be resistance! Happy 50 years of FAUrb!
