(b Odessa, 2 April 1896; d S?o Paulo, 27 July 1972). Brazilian architect, writer and teacher of Russian birth. He studied architecture at the University of Odessa and the Scuola Superiore di Architettura, Rome, graduating in 1920, and he worked in Rome for the classicist architect Marcello Piacentini before moving to S?o Paulo in 1923 and entering private practice. In 1925 he published an article that became a manifesto for modern architecture in Brazil; its emphasis on the industrialization of construction, particularly of standard components for low-cost housing, foreshadowed the theories of CIAM, of which he was a member (1929-42). Warchavchik was responsible for the first modern houses in Brazil; they were functionalist designs and included his own house (1927-8), some low-cost housing (1929) and the 'Modernistic House' (1930), all in S?o Paulo. The latter, built for exhibition, introduced modern architecture to a wider audience; it was a Cubist design, complete with furniture, lighting and decoration, and it contained works by avant-garde artists such as Anita Malfatti (1896-1964), Victor Brecheret, Emiliano di Cavalcanti, Lasar Segall and Tarsila who had participated in the earlier Semana de Arte Moderna (1922). In 1931 Warchavchik was invited to teach a new course in modern architecture at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro, by L?cio Costa, who had been appointed to direct and reform the teaching there. Although the course was short-lived, it introduced the principles of avant-garde European architecture to a generation of Brazilian architects. He worked in partnership with Costa from 1931 to 1933, and with Oscar Niemeyer in their team they carried out several Functionalist projects, such as the group of low-cost houses (1933) in Gamboa, Rio de Janeiro. In 1939, with Jo?o B. Vilanova Artigas, Warchavchik won second prize in a competition for the town hall, S?o Paulo, his first urban-scale project (unexecuted). After 1940 his work moved away from the purism of his earlier projects and began to incorporate natural materials, as in the Crespi beach house (1943), with painted timber shutters, or the Prado beach house (1946), both in Guaruj?. He continued to be a regular contributor to the newspapers of Rio de Janeiro and S?o Paulo until 1961; these writings and his early work had a profound influence on the development of modern architecture in Brazil.
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