(b Zurich, 27 June 1917; d São Paulo, 1 April 1974). Brazilian architect, interior designer and teacher of Swiss birth. His family moved from their native Switzerland to Brazil when his father, the architect Frederico Ruchti, received a commission from the Klabin family. Jacob studied architecture (1935–40) at the School of Engineering at Mackenzie University, São Paulo, where he resisted the prescribed Neo-classical aesthetic and rebelliously encouraged his fellow students to share his interest in modern architecture. His interest in Constructivism inspired some of his design projects and was expressed in an article for Clima (1941). After graduation he worked for a time with his father, designing houses similar in concept to the Usonian houses of Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1946 he was one of the team responsible for designing the headquarters of the Instituto de Arquitetos de São Paulo. In 1951, with Pietro Maria Bardi (b 1900), he set up the first school of design in Brazil, the Instituto de Arte Contemporânea of the Museu de Arte, São Paulo, at which he was Professor of Composition; the following year, in association with other architects, including Carlos Millan, he opened Branco & Preto, the first shop for modern furniture in São Paulo. In these years he also helped organize the first and second Bienal de São Paulo and in 1953 was chief architect to the Comissão do IV Centenário de São Paulo, as such responsible for the interior design in the pavilions and marquee. From 1956 he returned to teaching and held the chair of Decorative Composition in the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning at the University of São Paulo. Ruchti was the first architect trained in São Paulo to devote himself systematically to interior design, which he was always careful to distinguish from interior decoration. He stressed that the role of the interior designer is architectural, involving the structuring of space on the basis of function. His various interior design commissions included designing the Duraplac Gallery (1968) in São Paulo as a sculptural and coloured space specifically intended for the exhibition of sheet metal.