Modern Architecture in Latin America
Art, Technology, and Utopia

Luis E. Carranza (Author), Fernando Luiz Lara (Author)

9780292762978

Paperback / softback, published 5 January 2015

424 pages
27.9 x 21.6 x 2.5 cm, 1.56 kg

Designed as a survey and focused on key examples and movements arranged chronologically from 1903 to 2003, this is the first comprehensive history of modern architecture in Latin America in any language.

Runner-up, University Co-op Robert W. Hamilton Book Award, 2015

• Foreword by Jorge Francisco Liernur
• Acknowledgments
• (Notes toward an) Introduction
• 1903. Francisco Pereira Passos begins a project to “
  civilize”
  Rio de Janeiro by applying Baron Haussmann’
  s ideas as an answer to the tropical (lack of) urbanism.
• 1904. VÍ
  ctor Meano, Francisco de Oliveira Passos, and Emile JÉ
  quier build a Latin American character with a classical vocabulary.
• 1906. JuliÁ
  n GarcÍ
  a NÚ
  Ñ
  ez’
  s Hospital EspaÑ
  ol defines a characteristic search for a new language: Secession/Art Nouveau.
• 1914. JesÚ
  s T. Acevedo and Federico Mariscal lecture in Mexico on the character, importance, and role of the Spanish colonial legacy.
• 1915. Antonin Nechodoma introduces the Prairie style to Puerto Rico.
• 1922. In an attempt to create a building expressive of the “
  cosmic race,”
  JosÉ
  Vasconcelos inaugurates in Mexico City the headquarters of the SecretarÍ
  a de EducaciÓ
  n PÚ
  blica and formalizes the muralist project.
• 1923. Mario Palanti: Palacio Barolo and Palacio Salvo
• 1924. MartÍ
  n Fierro presents Alberto Prebisch and Ernesto Vautier’
  s Ciudad Azucarera en TucumÁ
  n and formalizes the connections and interests in architecture among the literary and artistic avant-gardes.
• 1925. Modern architecture begins with Gregori Warchavchik and Rino Levi publishing manifestos on the new architecture
  catching up to the 1922 Semana de Arte Moderna.
• 1925-A. EstridentÓ
  polis en 1975: Literary Architecture and the Avant-Garde
• 1925-B. JosÉ
  VillagrÁ
  n GarcÍ
  a, Instituto de Higiene y Granja Sanitaria
• 1928. The Columbus Memorial Lighthouse Competition sparks an investigation into what architecture for Latin America should be like.
• 1929-A. The Ibero-American Exhibition opens in Seville, revealing the complex and contradictory relations between Spain and its former American colonies.
• 1929-B. Le Corbusier’
  s first encounters with South America: lectures and early projects for Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay
• 1929-C. With the History of the Skyscraper, Francisco Mujica articulates the skyscraper’
  s Latin American dimension.
• 1929. Sergio LarraÍ
  n and Jorge Arteaga’
  s Oberpauer Building initiates a new direction in Chilean architecture.
• 1930-A. GetÚ
  lio Vargas takes power in Brazil and appoints twenty-eight-year-old LÚ
  cio Costa as director of the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes (ENBA).
• 1930-B. Commemorating the centenary of its independence, Uruguay takes the first Soccer World Cup at home, and Montevideo is at the center of its modern ambitions.
• 1930. FlÁ
  vio de Carvalho, “
  City of the Naked Man”
  
• 1931. Juan O’
  Gorman, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Houses and Studios
• 1933. In his PlÁ
  ticas sobre arquitectura lecture, Juan O’
  Gorman highlights the existing polemics between functionalism and academic architecture.
• 1936. Le Corbusier is back in Rio de Janeiro.
• 1936-A. The Kavanagh Building is finished, becoming the tallest skyscraper in Latin America.
• 1936-B. Francisco Salamone: Fascism and Monumental Architecture in the Pampa
• 1936-C. Julio VilamajÓ
  , School of Engineering
• 1937. Wladimiro Acosta’
  s Vivienda y ciudad highlights the relationship between ecology, new forms of leisure, the house, and the city.
• 1937. Cine Gran Rex and Argentine Classicist Modernism
• 1938. Characteristic of the growing reach of surrealism into architecture and Latin America, the Chilean architect-trained artist Matta publishes “
  Sensitive Mathematics-Architecture of Time”
  in Minotaure.
• 1938. JoaquÍ
  n Torres-GarcÍ
  a, Monumento cÓ
  smico, Montevideo, Uruguay
• 1939. The European diaspora brings architectural talents to Latin America on an unprecedented scale.
• 1939. The Brazilian pavilion at New York World’
  s Fair
• 1941. Pampulha represents an encounter that would change the future of Brazil.
• 1942. Amancio Williams, Casa sobre el Arroyo
• 1943-A. The Brazil Builds exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York highlights the architectural and political interests of U.S. relations with Brazil.
• 1943-B. Town Planning Associates (TPA) is commissioned to design a new Brazilian town around an airplane factory, Cidade dos Motores. This will be the beginning of TPA’
  s involvement with Latin America that will include not only plans for Chimbote, Peru, but also master plans for MedellÍ
  n and BogotÁ
  , Colombia, and Havana, Cuba.
• 1944. Henry Klumb moves to Puerto Rico and formalizes investigations of modern architecture in the tropics.
• 1945. Antoni Bonet, Punta Ballena, Uruguay
• 1946. Affonso Reidy’
  s Popular Housing Blocks
• 1947-A. Luis BarragÁ
  n and Max Cetto, the É
  migrÉ
  German architect, begin working on the design of the first houses in Mexico City’
  s Jardines del Pedregal subdivision.
• 1947-B. Seeking to symbolize postwar efficiency and organization, Latin American cities embrace the North American “
  architecture of bureaucracy.”
  
• 1947-A. Oscar Niemeyer sketches the UN building in New York but takes no credit.
• 1947-B. Mario Pani-Multifamiliares
• 1947-C. AgrupaciÓ
  n Espacio
• 1949. La ciudad frente al rÍ
  o is released, showing the transformations of Le Corbusier’
  s plan for Buenos Aires.
• 1950. Public housing reaches a monumental scale: Mario Pani, Carlos RaÚ
  l Villanueva, Affonso Reidy, Oscar Niemeyer.
• 1951-A. Carlos RaÚ
  l Villanueva, Villanueva Residence
• 1951-B. PROA magazine publishes Arquitectura en Colombia, articulating an identity that survived the second half of the century.
• 1951-C. Lina Bo Bardi inaugurates her Casa de Vidro.
• 1952. The debates of plastic integration, modern architecture, and the development of new city forms come to the forefront in two major universities: the UNAM in Mexico City and the Universidad Central in Caracas, Venezuela. The first exemplifies figurative, legible, and socially conscious art
  the second, abstraction.
• 1952. Eladio Dieste, Iglesia de Cristo Obrero, AtlÁ
  ntida, Uruguay
• 1953-A. Affonso Reidy: halfway between the Carioca school and the Paulista school
• 1953-B. El Eco Experimental Museum in Mexico City opens its doors, advocating for an “
  emotional architecture.”
  
• 1953-C. Max Bill’
  s critique of the SÃ
  o Paulo Biennial has a significant impact in Brazil: Oscar Niemeyer writes a “
  mea culpa,”
  SÉ
  rgio Bernardes invests in designing a technological utopia, and JoÃ
  o Filgueiras Lima devotes his life to prefabrication.
• 1953-A. FÉ
  lix Candela, Church of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, Mexico City
• 1953-B. Mario Roberto &
  Aacute
  lvarez, Teatro General San MartÍ
  n, Buenos Aires
• 1954. Le Corbusier, Curutchet House, La Plata, Argentina
• 1955. Eladio Dieste-Tectonics driving the accidental architect
• 1955-A. Fruto Vivas, Club TÁ
  chira
• 1955-B. The Helicoide in Caracas: The Ultimate Parking and Shopping Center
• 1955-C. Gio Ponti, Villa Planchart
• 1956. BrasÍ
  lia: A modernist utopia?
• 1957-A. Mies van der Rohe, BacardÍ
  Buildings for Havana, Cuba, and Mexico City
• 1957-B. Lina Bo Bardi, SÃ
  o Paulo Museum of Art
• 1959. The appeal of Corbusian monumentality and bÉ
  ton brut: Clorindo Testa’
  s Government Building in La Pampa and, with SEPRA, the Bank of London and South America in Buenos Aires
• 1961-A. Fidel Castro, in conversation with Ernesto “
  Che”
  Guevara, decides to convert a golf course into art schools in Cuba.
• 1961-B. JoÃ
  o Batista Vilanova Artigas and Paulo Mendes da Rocha articulate the Paulista school: free ground plan, generous social spaces, and opaque envelopes.
• 1961. JoÃ
  o Batista Vilanova Artigas, School of Architecture and Planning, University of SÃ
  o Paulo
• 1962. Nelson Bayardo, Columbarium, Montevideo
• 1963. In BogotÁ
  , Rogelio Salmona takes old bricks to a new dimension in Torres del Parque.
• 1964-A. The military dictatorship ends Delfim Amorim and AcÁ
  cio Gil Borsoi’
  s investigations into an architecture for the Brazilian northeast.
• 1964-B. Pedro RamÍ
  rez VÁ
  zquez, Museo Nacional de AntropologÍ
  a, Mexico City
• 1964-C. MartÍ
  n Correa and Gabriel Guarda, Las Condes Benedictine Monastery Chapel
• 1965-A. Parque do Flamengo: Roberto Burle Marx redefines the Brazilian landscape by rediscovering the country’
  s own local species.
• 1965-B. The (re)invention of Curitiba: from the plan of Jorge Wilheim to the implementation by Jaime Lerner
• 1965. Juan Borchers, Cooperativa ElÉ
  ctrica de ChillÁ
  n, Chile
• 1966. United Nations as client and advocate: Emilio Duhart’
  s CEPAL Building in Santiago
• 1967. HÉ
  lio Oiticica builds TropicÁ
  lia, challenging the traditional boundaries between art, popular culture, construction, and architecture.
• 1967. JesÚ
  s Tenreiro-Degwitz-Venezuelan Postmodernism
• 1968. The Olympic Games provide Mexico City with opportunities for new forms of national representation through architecture
  deadly student protests highlight the contested use of public space.
• 1969-A. Inventing new educational paradigms, Alberto Cruz Covarrubias and Godofredo Iommi (poetically) found the Ciudad Abierta in Chile.
• 1969-B. PREVI: Two opposing governments in Peru bring in the best architects in the world to address squatter settlements.
• 1969. Francisco Bullrich publishes on Latin American architecture.
• 1971. Formalizing the legacy of the MadÍ
  (Movimiento de Arte de InvenciÓ
  n) and utopian urban projects, Gyula Kosice proposes a hydrospatial city.
• 1971. National Theater, Guatemala
• 1974. Teaching under duress: La Escuelita, dictatorship, and postmodernism in Argentina
• 1975. Filgueiras Lima, Capela do Centro Administrativo da Bahia
• 1976. Mexican postmodernism: Teodoro GonzÁ
  lez de LeÓ
  n’
  s Colegio de MÉ
  xico expresses modern architecture’
  s new historicizing sensibilities.
• 1977-A. &
  Eacute
  olo Maia, Capela de Santana ao PÉ
  do Morro
• 1977-B. Bruno Stagno House, Costa Rica
• 1979. Pampulha magazine is launched in Minas Gerais, marking the beginning of Brazilian postmodernism.
• 1980. The Pritzker Architecture Prize is awarded to Luis BarragÁ
  n, and photography is at the center of the myth.
• 1983. Niemeyer returns to Rio de Janeiro to design the SambÓ
  dromo and the CIEPs: architecture gets closer to popular needs.
• 1983-A. RamÓ
  n GutiÉ
  rrez publishes Arquitectura y urbanismo en IberoamÉ
  rica.
• 1983-B. Severiano Porto, Balbina Environmental Protection Center, Brazil
• 1985-A. In the midst of a “
  not-so-lost”
  decade ...
• 1985-B. Lina Bo Bardi and the SESC PompÉ
  ia inaugurate an interest in adapting existing structures.
• 1988. Brazilian Museum of Sculpture
• 1990. Chilean postmodernism is challenged by JosÉ
  Cruz and GermÁ
  n del Sol.
• 1991. Angelo Bucci and Alvaro Puntoni win the competition for the Brazilian pavilion at Seville Expo 1992, marking the end of the postmodern reign and the beginning of neomodernism.
• 1993. Pablo Beitia, Xul Solar Museum (Pan Klub Foundation)
• 1994-A. Quae sera tamen: Architecture for the Favelas
• 1994-B. As a model for internationalization, NAFTA becomes emblematic of the new character of late-twentieth-century Mexican architecture.
• 1997. Smiljan Radic, Charcoal Burner’
  s Hut
• 2000. Colombian Renaissance: In BogotÁ
  and MedellÍ
  n, mayors and architects work together to create better cities.
• 2000. Alberto Kalach, GGG House, Mexico City
• 2001. Solano BenÍ
  tez’
  s Tomb for His Father, Paraguay
• 2002. Rafael Iglesia, Pavilions at Parque Independencia
• Provocations for a Conclusion: Islands No More
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Illustration Credits
• Index