Latin American modern architectures : ambiguous territories

Review of Latin American Modern Architectures: Ambiguous Territories on Planning Perspectives.

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.

Docomomo Conference, 2006

The paper deals with the cultural invention of “Mexico” and “Spain” through the architectural imaginaries developed by Spanish immigrant communities in both sides of the Atlantic. It engages the social world known in the early XXth century as “indianos”. Migration produced displacement, and “change.” The reconstruction of cultural Hispanic imaginaries – among them architecture- became a fundamental goal in immigrant´s identitary issues. Concerns like loyalties to a certain nation, region, tradition or social groups and specially those related to both imagined worlds – the old homeland that was left and the new homeland adopted without fully integrating into it. New traditions are born but conceived as old, new imaginaries – such as regional, “Spanish” or “Mexican” architecture- are thought as authentic. The invention of a “Spanish architecture from America/Mexico” that is recognized overseas, opened a new cultural mental map through which this immigrant community imagined and thought Latin America. These modern spaces and their urban proyection, have been scarcely analyzed by Mexican historiography. Reduced to historical styles, the counterpoint between these imaginaries and their invention of a different cultural boundary that unites Spain and Mexico are not even considered. Nevertheless, through the architecture of the “indianos” constructed in both countries at the same time , we can start thinking about alternative territorial models in the historical invention of Latin America.

Colombia desde Afuera / Colombia from the Outside, 2021

This article critically overviews the evolving portrayal of Latin American architecture and urban design, particularly by United States and European observers, as the realization of a modernist aspiration to align design with social causes. With a focus on the coupling of architectural and nation-building projects in Colombia, the article urges for a closer look at the conditions and en-tanglements of architectural production in the region's uneven political and spatial landscapes. * Resumen Este artículo analiza críticamente la representación cambiente de la arquitectura y el diseño urba-no latinoamericanos, a través de observadores estadounidenses y europeos, como la realización de una aspiración modernista de alinear el diseño con las causas sociales. Con un enfoque en la combinación de proyectos arquitectónicos y de construcción nacional en Colombia, el artículo insta a una mirada más cercana de las condiciones y enredos de la producción arquitectónica en los desiguales paisajes políticos y espaciales de la región.

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.

Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, 2023

Architecture in Latin America is cyclically underpinned by the quest to represent multiple identities: international, national, (Latin) American. During the 1930s, although modernist European architects became the reference for Latin American professionals, they were nonetheless of no help in developing national expressions of modernity. Tracing back the debate to the cultural turmoil of that decade with an eye on older topoi on environmental determinism, this article delves into various texts through which the identity of Colombian architectural modernism was constructed. Firstly, it highlights the link between territory, nation, and historical heritage that underpinned the definition of a system of values seen as typically Colombian but, in fact, comparable to that of other countries. Then, it focuses on the construction of Colombian modernism’s identity as opposed to different Latin American experiences, highlighting the role of local and international actors. The article also explains the centrality given to Bogotá and its architecture because of the climatic differences that made the country’s cool highlands similar to Europe and the USA and, therefore, the place where civilisation, development, and modern architecture were possible for the Colombian elites. Ultimately, this text documents an exemplary case, stressing the non-exceptionalism of the different representations of Latin American national modernisms.

Bulletin of Latin American Research, 2012