This is the text of the opening speech from a lecture series entitled ‘The Problem of Space in Architectural Criticism’ that Lina Bo Bardi gave at the Escola de Belas Artes da Universidade Federal da Bahia in the Spring of 1958. I came across it in the Architecture Words series by AA Publications on my year off, and have kept it as a mental note ever since. The bit that particularly resonated deals with the relationship between theory and practice, which I found unhelpfully contrived throughout my studies. Like Bo Bardi’s built projects, there is something wonderfully bold and unpretentious about her framing of this relationship: ‘let us set aside the idealistic definition (it is important to narrow the scope of the problem), which sets up a vicious circle by attempting to define the term “theory” theoretically as if it were a theoretical form somehow distinct from practice. For us, theory relates to practice, in that practice is rationally and necessarily demonstrated through theory, while theory is shown to be realistic and rational through its practice.’ (Italics by the author)