Isay Weinfeld Works

A comprehensive consideration of the architecture and interiors of the great contemporary Brazilian architect, designer, and filmmaker.

Weinfeld is renowned for work that exudes the power of classical modernism while being completely of its own moment. Biophilic design, an approach to architecture that emphasizes and embraces the natural world and its restorative qualities, is at its heart, allowing for a gorgeous aesthetics while also celebrating nature. Here, design offers sublime symbiosis where natural world and that which is human-made serve as complements. Above all, the buildings are easy to be in, inviting, and elegant—and all without ostentatiousness.

Featured projects span four decades in the architect’s ongoing quest for beauty and his deeply felt devotion to modernist principles, including the Jardim Building, overlooking New York’s High Line; his reinvention of the Four Seasons restaurant in the iconic Seagram Building; La Petite Afrique in Monte Carlo, with its deep plant-studded balconies; and the monolithic Fasano Hotel in São Paulo, among many others.

With work ranging from residential towers and houses to bars, hotels, restaurants, equestrian centers, and bookstores, to name only a few of the types at which Weinfeld excels, he is most concerned with how people feel in his spaces, and designs with the ultimate goal that any given place—house interior, courtyard garden, or simple hall between rooms—evoke happiness and pleasure.

Isay Weinfeld is a filmmaker, designer of interiors and furniture, and head architect at his eponymous firm, founded in 1973. James Moore McCown is a writer and co-author of Rizzoli’s The Home Office. Oscar Riera Ojeda, an editor and designer, is director of Oscar Riera Ojeda Publishers. Fernando Guerra is an architectural photographer based in Lisbon, Portugal.