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- architecture
- Mestizo style
- Puuc style
During the 1920s and ’30s in Uruguay, the political climate of liberalism, in conjunction with a prosperous and educated population, created an ideal environment for the reception of modern architecture. The new public schools in Montevideo designed by Juan Antonio Scasso in 1926 exhibit a rational scheme of simple volumes. The design for the new Municipal Palace (1930) of Montevideo, by Mauricio Cravotto, although a symmetrical composition, is rendered in a modern vocabulary. The Montevideo department store Lapido (1929–33), by Juan Aubriot and Ricardo Valabrega, is a good example of the new Modernist architecture that quickly took hold in Latin America after Le Corbusier’s famous lectures of 1929.
The central figure in Montevideo was Julio Vilamajó, who designed the Faculty of Engineering there in 1937. The spatial sequences on the ground floor, the articulation of the different volumes, and the complex functions of the building are typical of his architecture. His concern for an honesty of expression through the correct use of materials and structure is evident in all his work and also in his role as an educator in the School of Architecture of Montevideo’s University of the Republic, which in the 1930s was the most advanced in all the Americas.
When Joaquín Torres García returned to Montevideo in 1934 to set up a school, he was part of a group of artists who—like Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg in Paris—considered abstraction the highest expression of the human spirit. At the same time, he felt it was important to incorporate symbols into his work without negating the basic principles of abstraction. His Taller Torres García, established in 1943, launched the careers of many artists, including Augusto and Horacio Torres, Julio Alpuy, and Gonzalo Fonseca. The ideas of the Taller Torres García regarding the integration of art and architecture would have a great impact on architects both in Uruguay and in Buenos Aires. Mario Payssé-Reyes was a student of Vilamajó and inherited his studio at the School of Architecture. His seminary for the archdiocese of Montevideo (1954) is a large complex organized around several patios. The use of brick and the collaboration with Horacio Torres in the wall reliefs, doorways, and more make this perhaps the best example from the region of the ideal of integrating the arts.
The work of Eladio Dieste built upon the constructive approach to the arts advocated by the Taller Torres García. Dieste was able to invent a new structural system based on the amalgamation of brick, mortar, and iron. In his Atlántida Church (1957–58) the brick walls and roof undulate in ways that are disorienting. In the interior the articulation of space and light is achieved by the inflection of the ceramic structures with an unusual geometry that contradicts traditional masonry techniques. He also used this technique in his designs for industrial warehouses and factories, such as the Agroindustrias Massaro (1955) in Canelones and the Frugoni Warehouse (1955) in Montevideo.
Argentina
By the time of Le Corbusier’s Buenos Aires lectures in 1929, there was already a group of Argentine architects working in the modern vocabulary. The project for the Sugar City (1924)—a Marxist, perhaps utopian, experiment in the rural Tucumán province—by Alberto Prebisch and Ernesto Vautier; the office building La Equitativa del Plata (1930) in the centre of Buenos Aires, by Alejandro Virasoro; La Maison Garay (1936) in Buenos Aires, by Jorge Kalnay; the Siemens Building (1927) in Buenos Aires, by Hans Hertlein; and the houses by Alejandro Bustillo for Victoria Ocampo in Mar del Plata (1926) and for Palermo Chico in Buenos Aires (1929) are some of the early manifestations of modern architecture. The Sarmiento School (1937) in Córdoba, by Juárez Cáceres, exemplifies the use of modern architecture to renovate public educational institutions. The development of speculative apartment buildings in Buenos Aires also led architects to apply the Modernist vocabulary in projects such as Antonio Vilar’s building at Ugarteche (1929), Léon Dourge’s Malabia (1933), and Jorge Kálnay’s building (1932) at the intersection of Santa Fe and Rodriguez Peña. The Gran Rex Cinema (c. 1937) in Buenos Aires, by Alberto Prebisch, represents a refined example of a rationalist modern architecture based on simple cubic forms with minimal ornamentation. Perhaps the most eloquent Modernist house built during this time is the Casa Vilar (1935) by Vilar in San Isidro, Buenos Aires.
After working in Le Corbusier’s atelier in Paris, Antonio Bonet returned to Buenos Aires and formed the “Austral” group in 1938 with Jorge Ferrari Hardoy, Juan Kurchan, Horacio Vera Barros, Abel López Chas, and others. They were interested in reacting against the official architecture and design and in developing an Argentine experimental style based on their manifesto of 1939. Perhaps the best result of this collaboration is the steel and leather “Butterfly” chair shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and then manufactured by Knoll International. Bonet’s Berlingieri House (1946) and his hotel and restaurant, Solana del Mar (1946), both in Punta Ballena, Uruguay, show the influence of a vernacular period in Le Corbusier’s houses of the 1940s, with their barrel vaults and infill brick. The apartment house at Virrey del Pino (1943) in Buenos Aires, by Jorge Ferrari Hardoy and Kurchan, includes a Corbusian double-height terrace.
Amancio Williams and César Janello formed their style in the early 1940s, under the influence of the nonfigurative avant-garde Madí group and the teachings of Tomás Maldonado. The search for a design methodology that was a result of an objective arrangement of technical data, without any nonessential illusion, found its expression in the work of Williams, especially in the house he built for his father, the House over the Brook (c. 1945) in Mar del Plata, and unbuilt projects such as the Houses in Space (c. 1943), the Buenos Aires Airport (1945), and the Suspended Office Building (1946). This work was central to the debates around abstract art versus concrete art in the circle of artists that included Lidy Prati and Maldonado.
The Bank of London (1960–66), in Buenos Aires, by Clorindo Testa, Santiago Sánchez, Elía Federico Peralta Ramos, and Alfredo Agostini, used large-scale concrete piers on the facade in order to leave the interior of the banking hall free of columns. The structure’s rough concrete forms and complex space, where the upper three stories appear to float while bridges link the different horizontal planes, make this building a prime example of the Brutalist architecture of the early 1960s.
Perhaps Argentina’s most elegant modern architecture in the 1960s was that of Mario Roberto Álvarez. His architecture demonstrated clarity of structure and a refined choice of materials. His Belgrano Day School (1964) in Buenos Aires and Theatre and Cultural Center San Martín (c. 1953–64) are examples of his sobriety of expression.
Contemporary architecture, c. 1965–the present
The quality of architectural production since about 1965 does not live up to the standards that were set during the “golden age” of Latin American architecture from roughly 1929 to 1960. This could be the result of diminishing economic resources coupled with the loss of faith in the process of modernization in developing Latin American economies. Nevertheless, some exceptional work has been produced during this period throughout the Americas.
In Cuba the major buildings of interest constructed after 1960 are Ricardo Porro and Vittorio Garatti’s art schools in Havana (1962–65). The serpentine form of Porro’s School of Plastic Arts and Modern Dance School and Garatti’s Ballet and Music School use brick vaults and domes to create dramatic, well-lit spaces.
In Chile, Emilio Duhart’s United Nations (1966) building on the outskirts of Santiago is a monumental concrete building in the form of a square, with a large court occupied by the assembly buildings. The main assembly hall is shaped in the form of a helicoidal ziggurat, giving the building a strong presence in relation to the surrounding Andean landscape.
Chile has produced a refined architecture that combines a respect for early Modernism with a sensitivity to materials and construction techniques. The work of Christian de Groote is rooted in the landscape at the particular conditions of the site. His Fuenzalida House (1984) in Santiago is a long and narrow house that is framed by two parallel brick walls, which establish a horizontal line within the landscape and serve to give structure to the interior and exterior spaces. The Centro-Maderas Timber Processing Plant (1996) in Santiago de Chile, by José Cruz Ovalle and Juan Purcell, uses large-span wood trusses that have been modulated by a gentle curve (in section) that accommodates a two-story office block within the large warehouse.
The Pizarras Ibéricas Building (1997), by Mathias Klotz, in Santiago de Chile, also uses a material to express the nature of the building. In this case the stone on the exterior represents a company that supplies thin laminates of stone. The Manantiales Building (1997–99) in Santiago, by Luis Izquierdo, Antonia Lehman, Raimundo Lira, and José Domingo Peñafiel, organizes the structure to reflect the static forces of the building and makes them legible on the facade. Situated on the coast of Chile, the Casa Pite (2003–05), by Smiljan Radic, is a refined integration of cantilevered prismatic volumes that seem to be floating on a rocky cliff overlooking the ocean.
In Colombia the Torres del Parque (1965), by Rogelio Salmona, is a housing project with 294 units. The three brick-lined towers are shaped to evoke the inverted cone of the adjacent bullring. Salmona had worked from 1948 to 1955 in Le Corbusier’s studio in Paris with other architects from Latin America, such as Teodoro González de León from Mexico and Augusto Tobito from Venezuela. Salmona’s Casa de Huespedes (1980) in Cartagena has its origins in an abandoned fortification on this island site. This guesthouse for the president, made of coral stone, is organized around a courtyard and roof terraces that relate to the landscape. The house is a perfect synthesis of modern spaces that incorporates the Islamic garden, the courtyard, and roof terraces that recall the old fortifications.
In Venezuela, Jesús Tenreiro-Degwitz’s Corporacion Venezolana de Guayana Headquarters in Cuidad Guayana (1967–68) was the first building to be erected in the centre of this new city. It is an elegant pyramidal structure built in steel, with large infill brick panels inset as a sunscreen. This structure is a synthesis of Louis I. Kahn and Mies van der Rohe but is not imitative of either. In Caracas W.J. Alcock adapted R. Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome as the roof for his Poliedro Stadium (1972), creating the biggest span of any aluminum structure. Alcock’s residential work, such as his Lopez House (1974) and Ribereña House (1979), both in Caracas, shows a rigorous concrete frame structure that is adapted to the landscape and infilled with brick. The Edificio Torre Europa (1976), an elegant curtain-wall office building, and the San Ignacio shopping centre (2000), by Carlos Gómez de Llarena, are examples of the best commercial architecture in Caracas. In the 1980s the influence of Italian architect Aldo Rossi was seen in the Palmasola House (1983) in Caracas and in the theatre (1982) and sports centre (1984) for Interalumina in Ciudad Guayana by Carlos Brillembourg. The adaptation of vernacular elements is prevalent in the residential work of Federico Vegas.
Ricardo Legorreta’s Camino Real Hotel (1968) in Mexico City is a masterful composition of courtyards and roof terraces within the walls of one downtown block. This work is indebted to the work of Barragán, applying his methods on a larger public scale. In Mexico the Brutalism of Teodoro González de León’s Music Conservatory (1994) and the Neo-Barragánesque library (1994) by Legorreta coexist in the new National Centre of the Arts with the work of a younger generation of architects who are influenced by contemporary architecture in Europe and North America. The School of Theatre (1994), by TEN Arquitectos, and the School of Dance (1994), by Luis Vicente Flores, express a modernity that reinforces the government’s desire to present a new image of Mexico as an industrialized country with a global presence. The refined work of Alberto Kalach and Daniel Alvarez stands out both in their numerous residences as well as in the San Juan de Letrán Station (1994) in Mexico City. Their Casa Contadero (1997) in Contadero, Mexico City, takes advantage of a steep site to become part of the hill as well as to stand apart from it. The residential work of José Antonio Aldrete-Haas in Mexico City shows both the influence of the attenuated Modernism of the great Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza and a continuity with the lessons of Barragán.
In the province of Córdoba, Argentina, the work of Miguel Angel Roca shows the influence of his teacher, Louis I. Kahn, while his restructuring of public squares and pedestrian walks reflects postmodern concerns. The Laboratory for Biotechnology and Ecology (1988), by Jorge Moscato and Rolando Schere, in Chascomús, Argentina, and the summer house (1989) in Punta de las Piedras, Uruguay, by Horacio Baliero and Ernesto Katzenstein, are good examples of the influence of the work and writings of Rossi. A revival of the tradition of rational Modernism, looking toward the architecture of Antonio Vilar and Amancio Williams, has influenced a new generation of Argentine architects such as Pablo Beitía, Claudio Vekstein, Mariano Clusellas, Oscar Fuentes, Roberta and Paula Lavarello, and Sergio Foster. Perhaps the most important work by this group is the Xul Solar Museum (1994–95) in Buenos Aires by Beitía.
The varied and inventive work of Pritzker Prize-winning architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha, coming from a tradition of Paulista (São Paulo) architects such as João Batista Vilanova Artigas, Ruy Ohtake, and Eduardo de Almeida, represented Brazil’s best architecture at the turn of the 21st century. Mendes da Rocha’s sensitive restoration and reconstruction of the New Pinacoteca of São Paulo (1993) transformed a 19th-century masonry building, originally designed for the city’s School of Arts and Crafts, into a modern museum with well-lit spaces that are appropriate for both large- and small-scale contemporary art. His remodeling of the Praça do Patriarca in the centre of São Paulo (2002) is organized around an elegant suspended steel canopy that protects a large pedestrian underpass.
Carlos F. Brillembourg