Notes in Lines: Rafaella Manso Turns a Family Piano Into a Sensory Journey at CASACOR São Paulo 2026

A 74-square-meter installation traces memory, silence and belonging through a 1951 piano, a Fibonacci-inspired stained glass window and a bid for carbon-neutral certification

SÃO PAULO – Architect Rafaella Manso presents “Notes in Lines” at CASACOR São Paulo 2026, an installation spanning a lounge and staircase with a total area of 74 square meters. The exhibition runs at Parque da Água Branca from June 2 through Aug. 9, open daily from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., under the overarching theme “Mind and Heart.” Manso built the space around a single object: a 1951 piano that once belonged to her grandmother, transformed here into the emotional anchor of the entire design.

Set atop a slab of deep red marble, the piano breaks sharply from the earthy, muted palette that defines the rest of the environment. For Manso, the instrument stopped functioning as furniture long ago. It became, in her words, a vessel for memory, capable of carrying the weight of an entire architectural narrative on its own.

“Notes in Lines was born from a deeply personal memory, but it speaks to something I recognize as collective: the need to return to what sustains us. My grandmother’s piano stopped being an object and became a portal of affection, a way of turning history into architecture,” the architect says.

Divided between a roughly 30-square-meter lounge and a 44-square-meter staircase, the installation unfolds as a single continuous path. Visitors first encounter a space built for stillness and contemplation. From there, the staircase takes over as the emotional core of the journey, guiding movement through natural light, visual restraint and a stained glass window patterned on the Fibonacci sequence and the golden ratio.

Manso calls the result an “intentional desert,” a phrase she uses to explain her preference for neutral surfaces, diffused lighting and the near total absence of ornament. She describes the goal simply: a sensory pause built against the accelerated rhythm of contemporary life, achieved by stripping away rather than adding.

That restraint, however, breaks deliberately at the red marble platform beneath the piano. The saturated color punctures the desert-like palette and marks what Manso calls the space’s “vital point,” a jolt of emotion set against an otherwise hushed composition.

“The project is built on a balance between restraint and emotion. I wanted architecture that would help visitors slow down, but that would also reveal, at a certain point, an inevitable emotional force. The mind quiets, the heart wakes, and the lines carry that encounter,” Manso explains.

Lines and Light

Inspired by the visual language of sheet music, lines repeat as a unifying thread throughout the installation. They surface in the pattern of the rug, along the edge of the marble platform and in a mobile suspended above the staircase, forming a rhythm that recalls a musical staff without turning the space into a literal ode to music.

Central to the experience, the stained glass window carries a geometric pattern built from the Fibonacci sequence and the golden ratio, mathematical principles long linked to musical structure and visual harmony. Positioned along the staircase, it filters natural light across the space and deepens the sense of retreat that anchors Manso’s design.

Preserving the Building

Housed inside a protected heritage building, the installation worked within firm constraints that shaped many of its aesthetic decisions. Manso kept the original terrazzo flooring fully intact, along with the plaster moldings lining the ceiling, and used both as the starting point for a new ceiling design built in dialogue with, rather than opposition to, the existing structure.

Craft runs through nearly every material choice, from tapestry and macrame to the stained glass, ceiling and plaster moldings themselves. Manso treats these techniques as carriers of time and attention, elements that reinforce the installation’s broader meditation on memory and permanence rather than serve as decorative afterthoughts.

Sustainability

Environmental considerations shaped the project from its earliest planning stages. Material selections favored the lowest possible environmental impact, prioritizing suppliers with responsible production processes, traceable sourcing, recyclable materials and durability built to last well beyond the run of the exhibition itself.

Technical consulting from Sustentech guided the process through a Life Cycle Assessment, a methodology that measures a project’s environmental footprint from raw material extraction through final installation. Based on that analysis, the team planned to offset the carbon emissions generated during construction, with the stated goal of reaching full carbon-neutral certification.

Origins of the Story

At age 12, Manso’s grandmother received the piano as a gift, an episode the architect cites as the symbolic origin point for the entire installation. That memory, layered with recollections of Sunday music sessions, her mother guiding small hands across the keys while her grandfather’s violin filled the room, ultimately shaped the concept now on view in São Paulo.