Born in Toulon to Brazilian parents, schooled in England and Switzerland and trained at the National School of Fine Arts in Rio, Lúcio Costa turned to Modernism in 1929 and spent the rest of his life arguing that it could be made Brazilian. Briefly director of the school he had attended, he joined the new national heritage service SPHAN in 1937 and stayed there until retirement, which left him unusually fluent in both colonial fabric and reinforced concrete. In 1936 he used his standing in government to set aside a won competition and assemble his own team for the Ministry of Education and Health; the building that followed became the template for Brazilian modern architecture. His Parque Guinle slabs of 1948 rehearsed the residential superblock, and in 1957 his Plano Piloto won the competition for Brasília.
