At Casa-ateliê Tomie Ohtake, the radical legacy of José Zanine Caldas unfolds through architecture, design, craftsmanship and an enduring commitment to the environment.
30 September 2026
How can a place’s materials shape the worlds we build? ‘Zanine Caldas: Creation of Worlds’ revisits the extraordinary practice of José Zanine Caldas (1919–2001), the self-taught Brazilian architect, designer, model maker and educator whose work challenged conventional distinctions between architecture, craft and design.
Curated by Sabrina Fontenele, with curatorial assistance from Lahayda Mamani Poma, the exhibition brings together furniture, architectural models, drawings, photographs, films and archival documents. Organised across four sections, Root, Trunk, Shelter and Horizon, it traces Zanine’s evolving relationship with material, landscape, education and environmental preservation.
Wood sits at the heart of this story. From experiments with reducing waste in furniture production to his later use of discarded roots and tree trunks, Zanine transformed material considered unusable into powerful statements about Brazil’s disappearing forests. His celebrated móveis-denúncia, or protest furniture, gave environmental destruction a striking physical presence.
The exhibition creates a compelling conversation between Zanine and Tomie Ohtake, two practitioners united by experimentation, material sensitivity and the possibilities of making.
This exhibition is on view at Casa-ateliê Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil, until 7 November 2026.
