Review of Latin American Modern Architectures: Ambiguous Territories (original) (raw)
Related papers
Today's Relevance of Latin American Modern Architecture
Ritsumeikan Journal of Asia Pacific Studies, 2008
This study considers works of Latin American modern architecture that attracted international attention in the mid 20th century in order to show them as examples in the face of continuous cultural uprooting imposed by the advance of globalization. First, the uprooting sense which modernity has imposed upon society and how it is expressed through the homogenization of architecture is observed. Then, this influence upon Latin America is analyzed showing how a generation of mid-century architects reacted towards an imposed universal design, assimilating and reinterpreting it to generate a hybrid but native expression. Finally, the current situation of world's architecture is reviewed where by the legacy of Latin American modern expression has become a valuable source to feed latent creativity and local potential.
This text refers to the current state of the art in our discipline from a different perspective, exploring which I consider is its main feature: its plurality. In my opinion, the main differentiating factor of the architecture of the early twenty-first century with respect to the twentieth century is the coexistence of different trends and expressions of the discipline at the same times and places. Even though a similar phenomenon occurred early last century, most of the twentieth century was characterized by the assimilation of prevailing architectural doctrines or the succession of trends in contradiction. By contrast, today we serve the coexistence of spatial processes and results that on the one hand, enrich and diversify our urban and rural areas and, on the other, evidence the complexity of the profession, as well as the pursuit of individual languages and innovative procedures by designers and other professionals associated with architecture. The seven trends that I will refer to result from the reiterated exaltation or prioritization of any—among numerous—variables inherent in the discipline, because of the intentions of the designer or the particularity of the request. Then they derived to state what I consider are the seven main variables that any architectural project should tackle with greater or lesser intensity. Understood as an equalization exercise, any good architectural project should ensure a minimum level of attention to each of the seven variables, and then privileging one or some of them depending on the project, the client, the context or their own interests. Thus, thanks to this opportunity to focus on some aspect of the project, as architecture acquires identity and authorship.
The Memetic Evolution of Latin American Architectural Design Culture
Buildings, 2021
Architecture is an evolutionary field. Through time, it changes and adapts itself according to two things: the environment and the user, which are the touchstones of the concept of culture. Culture changes in long time intervals because of its cumulative structure, so its effects can be observed on a large scale. A nation displays itself with its culture and uses architecture as a tool to convey its cultural identity. This dual relationship between architecture and culture can be observed at various times and in various lands, most notably in Latin American designers. The geographical positions of Latin American nations and their political situations in the twentieth century leads to the occurrence of a recognizable cultural identity, and it influenced the architectural design language of that region. The nonlinear forms in architecture were once experienced commonly around Latin America, and this design expression shows itself in the designers’ other works through time and around t...
Latinamerican architecture identity
Lo otro no existe: tal es la fe racional, la incurable creencia de la razón humana. Identidad = realidad, como si, a fin de cuentas, todo hubiera de ser, absoluta y necesariamente, uno y lo mismo. Pero lo otro no se deja eliminar; subsiste, persiste; es el hueso duro de roer en que la razón se deja los dientes. Abel Martín, con fe poética, no menos humana que la fe racional, creía en lo otro, en "La esencial Heterogeneidad del ser", como si dijéramos en la incurable otredad que padece lo uno.
BEHIND THE DESIGN: LATIN AMERICAN SCHOOLS OF ARCHITECTURE
Proceedings of the 12th Space Syntax Symposium , 2011
The first Latin American buildings for schools of architecture were purposely designed and built during the 1950s under the discussion and influence of Modern movement ideas. This paper analyses the Facultad de Arquitectura, Urbanismo y Artes - Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería (FAUA-UNI) in Perú, the Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo - Universidad Central de Venezuela (FAU-UCV) in Venezuela, the Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo - Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (FAU-UFRJ) in Brazil, and the Facultad de Arquitectura- Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (FA-UNAM) and compares them with the Bauhaus School of Design (BSD) and Chandigarh College of Architecture (CCA) as built referents of Modernism and designed by Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier, respectively. The analysis is theoretically framed by the laws of the generation of form, as put forward by Bill Hillier (1989). It consists of three sections: an analysis of the architectural object and its spatial structure; a discussion of the influence of pedagogical aspects on the object; and the ‘effect back’, from the spatial structure to the users of the buildings. The main objective is to identify how the ideas of the Modern movement influenced the design of these schools in the 1950s in terms of spatial configuration and perception, over and above formal properties. The findings show that there are similarities between the Latin American Schools the Bauhaus School and the CCA in ways of thinking and ways of teaching architecture, but most importantly in spatial configuration and patterns of movement. Furthermore, the last stage of the analysis termed the ‘effect back’ (Hillier 1989), shows how the organisation of the Latin American Schools is directly influenced by the interior–exterior spatial relationships in these buildings.