Photo: Noemi Zein Telles
Ruth Verde Zein †
Born in São Paulo, Brazil (1955), Ruth Verde Zein was one of the brightest architectural historians and critics of her generation. She received her B. Arch. from the Universidade de São Paulo (1977). As an editor of Projeto in the 1980s, the most important architectural magazine in Brazil, she could watch the professional scene not only in her native country but in all of Latin America, and became an early member of SAL-Seminarios de Arquitectura Latino Americana and of DOCOMOMO Brazil. She obtained her M.Arch. (1999) and Ph.D. (2005) from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, focusing on the houses of Paulo Mendes da Rocha and the architecture of the Brutalist school of São Paulo architecture, respectively. A professor and researcher at the Faculdade de Arquitetura Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie in São Paulo, she was also a visiting professor at numerous architectural schools in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and the United States. Equally inspiring as a conference organizer and as a keynote speaker in conferences from Shanghai to Helsinki, Austin to Quito, she was also a juror in many architectural competitions and prize committees. A distinguished and active member of the International Committee of Architectural Critics, CICA, she served as one of its directors from 2023.
She was the author of and a contributor to many publications. Her Ph.D. dissertation, A Arquitetura da Escola Paulista Brutalista, which received the Brazilian Ministry of Education Prize for the Best Thesis on Architecture 2006, became an instant classic, duly complemented by Brasil: Arquiteturas após 1950 (2010) and Brutalist Connections: what they stand for (2014), along with the website she conceived on Brutalism as an international movement. She collaborated with the Museum of Modern Art of New York as one of the essayists in Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980, which was awarded the SAH Best Exhibition Catalog for 2015-2017. Critical Readings received the CICA Dennis Sharp Awards 2020 in the Bruno Zevi book category. Revisões Historiográficas: Arquitetura Moderna no Brasil (2021) was her latest contribution to the history of modern architecture in Brazil.
Her eye was sharp, her reasoning impeccable, her words invariably lucid and often witty, her love for architecture always evident. Second to none, she understood and proved that geopolitical marginality never meant second-rate thinking and doing. An excellent professor, an acclaimed scholar, a respected critic, a reliable friend, she passed away far too early on August 21, 2025.
We shall miss her deeply.
Carlos Eduardo Comas, Porto Alegre, Brazil, August 25, 2025.