Joel Ghivelder was born in Brazil and studied at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at the Federal University of Brazil, in Rio de Janeiro, graduating c1964. He is then listed as a student enrolled on the 1966-67 postgraduate ‘General Design’ course run by the Architectural Association’s (AA) Department of Development and Tropical Studies, in London. Little is known to us regarding Joel’s subsequent career but he appears to have established his own practice, which by the 1990s was reputable enough to be awarded the commission to restore the famous Cristo Redentor statue, on Corcovado Mountain, above Rio, replacing c15% of the stonework and re-landscaping the public spaces surrounding it.

 Sources

• Architectural Association Student Register, 1945-71. AA Archives
• Architectural Association Council Minutes, 24th July, 1967. AA Archives
• Architectural Association Membership Register, 1974. AA Archives
• Weber, B. ‘Works in Progress: On High’, The New York Times Magazine, 22nd July 1990, p46