Furniture with the looks of Brazil
Already with his name spreading abroad, Sergio was called in for important projects in Brazil, especially in the new capital. During this period, also at Oca, Sergio started getting orders to design furniture for Brasilia, the newly inaugurated capital of Brazil.
"I realized that Brasilia was coming up with those palaces, with that special architecture, and did not have an interior consistent with the architecture that was being presented. You noted that furniture was missing, that it did not complement things. So, certain settings in Brasilia were initially formed by pieces that complemented foreign architects’ work. There were wonderful pieces. But I believed that since a monumental architecture with the looks of Brazil, with something of Brazil, had already been created, the complements for these environments should be Brazilian too. There should be a touch of Brazil. There should be something that reflected our culture, our usual materials. Something of the Brazilian culture could be the Indian part. The historical part applied to the concept of furniture. So I said: 'I will fight for this idea.' And done with advantages, using Brazilian materials.
During a visit to the city, in 1963, the anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro, then president of the University of Brasilia, took him to meet the Dois Candangos auditorium, which was under construction at UNB. Darcy wanted Sergio to design the auditorium chairs. Sergio was very enthusiastic about it and, at the same time, in a panic, because it he only had twenty days to deliver an order for 250 chairs, which he called the Candango armchairs. On the flight back, he imagined a metal base to hold the single piece of leather to be used for the seat and back of the chair. According to journalist Adélia Borges, this way the chair "should swing slightly to allow people to circulate better between the rows - a detail he decided to use when he sat, at the door of a motorcycle shop, and looked at a wheel missing its spokes."
The mission was difficult and heavy, but Sergio managed to deliver the chairs in two weeks. The imbroglio to assemble them at the auditorium was a second stage of this complicated task. When the first chair was installed and Sergio sat in it, the leather sank. There was a big rush to solve the issue and they ended up calling in a college student's father who manufactured gloves, and who attached the leather firmly to the structure using a wooden instrument. And so the auditorium was opened hastily, with all chairs in place, except one, for lack of time. Sergio then spent the entire opening ceremony standing in the place where the chair was supposed to be so nobody would notice its absence. The chairs used at UNB were then used in many other theaters throughout Brazil, including the Anhembi theater, in São Paulo.
