photography © Daryan Dornelles

The night started with caipirinhas and gentle samba playing in the background. The mood set, we gathered to see Gia Wolff, winner of the first Wheelwright Prize in 2013, and learn about her research on Floating City:The Community-Based Architecture of Parade Floats. Wolff (MArch ’08) began by thanking her research team and family, who supported her while she tackled new territory: the social and physical mechanisms of parade float design. Although her ambitions were to compare parade floats globally, her research in Brazil alone has required the whole year. And next year, Wolff will look more comprehensively at the community relationships that make Carnaval Brazil possible.

photography ©Sarah Bolivar

Prior to traveling, Wolff contacted over one hundred strangers, twenty of whom she met on her first trip and five of whom “have become family.” This team has been instrumental for the project: Wolff relies on their knowledge to solicit information about the workings of parade floats, a ritual rooted in the cultural fabric of Brazil as well as a commercial enterprise. The Carnaval can be said to begin with the samba schools – nuclei where music, dancers, and floats take form. Samba schools are divided into first tier, second tier and third tier. First tier schools receive private and public funding to develop as many as 8 floats, while third tier floats have limited funding and generally do not parade in the Sambódromo, the main avenue. Although it is difficult, third tiers schools do have the potential to go up a tier. At Vila Olímpica, a community center housing Mangueira, one of the oldest top tier samba schools, as many as 6000 people, including 2000 foreigners, can participate. As we learned, both funding and pride are at stake in this competitive venture......Continue Reading

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