The architect is responsible for the final product and shall be organized in such a way to assure this objective. The idea, that may seem obvious to many, still is a call to many architecture offices dedicated to large projects to be organized on a different way from other consulting companies. In a pioneer effort in the methodology and organization of complex works, Escritorios Musa faced this question in the 70s, on a time of large volume of projects, occupying more than 100 people in Rio and 30 people in S.Paulo. this intense rhythm qualified the office as the Brazilian architecture and Urbanism office with the most large volume of work in mid 80s. The care with scale and organization was learned by Edison Musa in 1958, when he had the opportunity to work for one year with Candilis-Josic-Woods, in Paris, where he arrived to be a team project chief. At this time the French office was at the maximum of its production and conceptual prestige, just fresh from the urban debate promoted by Team X, on the last CIAM meeting.
Returning to Brazil, establishing his personal office in 1963, Edison Musa developed projects for real state and interiors architecture. The following step of the office came with the real state boom and general development of the 70s, the so-called “economical miracle’. In 1970, his brother became an associate, just back from one year with Freidin, Studley & Associates, New York. The development of activities also in São Paulo, took to the opening of a branch in that city, with direction by Jaci Hargreaves. In this period, Musa started to have foreign clients with larger requirements from the architects, asking not only for the Architecture Project but also Project Management, Interiors and Construction management, requiring a responsibility for costs, time schedules and final quality. This level of intervention and the spread of projects all over the country, created a methodology of following up works at large, with local groups managed from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo offices, and the mounting of an infra-structure of management of projects and construction , together with the architecture teams , making it together capable of facing works in any scale of size and complexity. As Edison Musa say, the office developed a working posture expressed on the “five points”:
1. flexibility assured by an insertion of a modulated grid which assures the coordination of the various systems.
2. observation of local conditions
3. technical systems adequate to complement local conditions(air condition, lighting, acoustics,…)
4. third generation of offices proposes: psychological confort, central supervision, energy saving systems, etc.)
5. specification centered on easy maintenance and durability.
The architect thinks that large projects are the natural field for acrchitecture development and a natural objective for the large architecture office, as happens effectively outside Brazil. A global view of the process of producing architecture , searching for a level of project and construction quality, similar to international requirements , is a main objective for Escritórios Musa.
Av. Princesa Isabel,323 - 5o. floor
Tel.: 55 21 543 54 59 - Fax: 55 21 543 58 10
ZIP CODE: 22011-010 - Copacabana - Rio de Janeiro - RJ - Brazil
edimusa@ibm.net e flamusa@escritoriosmusa.com.br
Al. Joaquim Eugênio de Lima, 680 - 1o. floor
Tel.: 55 11 285 16 33 - Fax.:55 11 285 18 55
CEP : 01403-000 Jardim Paulista - São Paulo - SP - Brazil