Orelhão: Brazil's iconic egg-shaped telephone booth

In 1971, an architect called Chu Ming Silveira created Brazil's iconic egg-shaped telephone booth, Orelhão. More than 50,000 of the booths were installed across Brazil and the design was so successful that other countries decided to use it.Chu Ming was born in China and moved over to Brazil with her family in 1949, following the end of the Chinese Civil War.At a time when not many architects were women in the country, she was tasked with creating a design for a cheap, light-weight and visually attractive public phone booth.Chu Ming died in 1997, aged 58. In 2017, Google decided to celebrate her life by creating a doodle. Her son, Alan Chu, has been sharing his memories of Chu Ming with Matt Pintus. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.(Photo: Chu Ming using an Orelhão phone booth. Credit: Chu Ming Silveira’s Collection - Ouvio.arq.br)