As part of the second generation of modern architects from Rio de Janeiro – at least one decade separated him from the first group of modern architects acting in Rio, such as Lúcio Costa (1902-1998), Jorge Machado Moreira (1904-1992), Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012) and Affonso Eduardo Reidy (1909-1964) -, Sérgio Bernardes (1919-2002) was a son of the new times. Graduated in 1948 at the National School of Architecture of the University of Brazil, currently the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, his work began to consolidate precisely in the post-war period, when the North American culture was imposed as the greatest reference in the Brazilian context, leaving the European influence – and the French, as its greatest expression in the country16 – in the background.