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Literature Review

Modern architecture is a very broad term when it comes to its definition, it implies the

set of currents or styles of architecture that have developed throughout the 20th century

throughout the world.

Journalist Cindy Rondon describes Modern architecture in the following words:

"This concept of modern architecture, understood as something stylistic and not

chronological, was characterized by the simplification of forms, the absence of ornament and

the conscious renunciation of classical academic composition, which was replaced by a

aesthetics with references to the different trends of so-called modern art (cubism,

expressionism, neoplasticism, futurism, etc.) " (Rondon, 2020, page 4)

Modernism meant, above all, the introduction and use of new materials such as steel

and reinforced concrete, as well as the application of associated technologies, the determining

factor that forever changed the way of designing and constructing buildings or spaces for life

and human activity. The architectural work is subjective to the context in which it is

developed, the time and space where the work is accentuated. Factors such as the

architectural influence of the author and the socio-economic and cultural aspects of a certain

time and place, are decisive to be able to understand the reason for the spatial solutions used

in each project.
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Urban development in Guayaquil

In the historical context of Guayaquil, one can observe that the city of Guayaquil has

been favored by its geographical location, thus facilitating its growth over the years. Wood

was the basis of the economy until the first half of the 19th century, not only because of the

exportation of this raw material, but also because of the conformation of the shipyards,

recognized worldwide as one of the best during the colonial and republican times.

Photo 1: Pier Avenue in the 60s, Guayaquil, Ecuador. From El

Universo, 1950, https://www.eluniverso.com/, Copyright 2021

C.A EL UNIVERSO

Former Ecuadorian president and economist Rafael Correa explains:

"In the middle 19th century, and until the world crisis of 1929, wood was replaced by

cocoa, the export of this product being the base of the economy, reaching 80% of total

exports in the country 2 During this period, the political and economic power of Ecuador

was based in the city of Guayaquil, managed by the agro-commercial bourgeoisie and the

Guayaquil banks, the main promoter of private and public investment.” (Correa, 1996, page

4)
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Photo 2: Guayaquil Seaport in 1950, Guayaquil, Ecuador. From El

Universo, 1950, https://www.eluniverso.com/, Copyright 2021

C.A EL UNIVERSO

Architect Mera mentions: "In the 1920s and especially the world crisis of 1929, the

Ecuadorian economy suffered a setback, as exports and cocoa production decreased, the only

product on which the economy was based." (Mera, Wong, & Yu lee, 1991) In order to

counteract the unemployment generated, the cultivation of other products such as sugar cane

and rice was promoted, which absorbed the working population at harvest times. Politically,

the Julian revolution of 1925 meant the first coup and then returned to democracy at the end

of the decade. As of this decade and due to the aforementioned circumstances, political power

would alternate between Guayaquil and Quito.

Architect Miriam Alcivar argues in her Thesis: "During the 1930s and 1940s, the

economy would suffer ups and downs, although it would progressively stabilize with the

export of products to the United States, this being the destination country for approximately

100% of exports in the 1940s." (Alcivar, Lee, & Rojas , 1980) In the country, at that time,

there was a favorable balance in the state coffers since there was an increase in exports and a

reduction in imports, these surpluses were used for the generation of countless buildings for

the State and other forms of aid to the main centers of power, mainly in the governments of

José María Velasco Ibarra.

Correa mentions:
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“At the end of the 1940s, the banana would make its appearance in the country's

economy, as would the dependency link towards the United States. Already in the 1950s,

North American capital is the one that finances production and controls production.

commercialization of the product; this banana exploitation boosted the Ecuadorian economy

and will begin an industrialization process aimed at substituting imports of consumer goods,

seeking the agro-export model on which the national economy had been based up to that

moment. " (Correa, 1996, page 5)

Conceptual Framework

Modern Movement in the world and Latin America

In general concepts and taking up a bit the approaches of Bruno Taut, the Architecture

of the Modern Movement is characterized by projecting buildings that achieve the best

possible utility, with materials and construction systems that respond to this purpose; based

on an aesthetic that consists in the direct relationship between building and purpose, in the

appropriate characteristics of the materials and in the elegance of the construction system;

Furthermore, no element was worth by itself but all formed a necessary part of the whole;

even the house lost its isolation, becoming a product of the collective and social disposition.

These and other approaches, however, are not applied in stricto sensu, on the contrary,

various proposals were evidenced in the different contexts of the cities that glimpse a self-

criticism in their adoption.

In Latin America and the world, the Modern Movement was later introduced and was

conditioned to the socio-economic context of the various countries in their capitalist phase of

industrialization. In addition, it is disseminated based on the theoretical proposals developed

in the International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM), which are made up of a

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select group of avant-garde architects, who analyzed and defined the basic concepts of this

new trend. The CIAM were carried out between the years 1928 and 1956. These architects

investigated and studied the problems of architecture and urban planning of cities, from the

Housing Unit to the conception of the city. With the publication of the Athens Charter of

1933 developed at the IV CIAM, the assimilation of the Modern Movement in the world

gradually grows.

The main precursors of this movement were the architects Walter Gropius, Le

Corbusier, Mies Van der Rohe, Phillip Johnson, among others. The architect Gropius founded

the Bauhaus School, where he was able to openly disseminate the theoretical approaches that

underpin the evolution and development of architecture. Architect Le Corbusier, with his

trips to America, gave several conferences and exchanged concepts on some projects, such as

the one developed for the new capital of Brazil. In North America, the following stand out:

The International Style with the typology of large skyscrapers and the rationalist work of

Frank Lloyd Wright; This architect, influenced by the Arts and Crafts trend, imposes an

innovative style in the construction of houses, applying his own design principles, which

basically consisted of seeking harmonization with the environment and in the use, if possible,

of a basic material throughout the work. This method helped to conceive works of great

spatial quality, despite its apparent systematic rigidity.

Due to the importation of artistic concepts and techniques, and to entering a very slow

industrialization process, the assimilation of the Modern Movement in Latin America is late,

emerging between the 1930s and 1940s. The Modern Movement in Latin America is not

presented in a homogeneous way, but is conditioned to the economic, political and cultural

circumstances of each country. Considering the variable nature of urban space, in this case, of

Latin American cities, identity problems that affect architecture are rooted in the critical void
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of the urban environment and cultural non-appropriation, which leads societies to import

mechanically styles alien to the latent, however, in some cases with obvious original signs of

improvement. In Latin America, the architecture produced in Brazil and Mexico can be

highlighted, where it breaks with the prismatic and sober scheme of the principles of the

Modern Movement. Among the curved proposals are proposing lines in volumetry, adding

color to the facades, integrating other arts such as: painting, gardening, sculpture; among

other aspects, which made them architectural of a high spatial quality. It should be noted that

the realization of this type of architecture in Latin America was conditioned by the impulse of

the State, with the exception of Argentina, where the construction of these monumental and

expensive buildings is adopted by the ruling classes.

The introduction of the "Modern Movement" in Guayaquil

In the mid-nineteenth century in Guayaquil, its infrastructure was organized on the

banks of the river due to its port character and because the urban space was designed around

commercial activity. The increase in population and the increasingly marked definition of

social groups resulting from the settlement patterns of the upper bourgeoisie, the petty

bourgeoisie, the incipient landlord and the emigrants from rural areas. In this way, the

typology of the Housing changes according to the area of the city where it is located and the

social class that uses it. If the urban plans of the beginning of the century still aspired to

control the shape of the city as a whole, this aspiration became impossible after the 1950s.

In the thesis The architects of the Guayaquil Modern Movement 1940-1960 by

Guayaquilean architects Myriam Alcivar, Pablo Lee, Sandra Luque, Milton Rojas and

Francisco Valdivieso point out that due to the shortage of housing for rural migrants and the
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growing demand from the middle class, the bourgeoisie has the opportunity to absorb the

income from their properties with capacity to generate it, this is how a real estate market

begins to form, urbanization and massive construction of houses will constitute places of

investment required for both local and national capital that will profit from the sale and

income of the new financed securities. Therefore, the investment is directed to two sectors:

The central commercial sector and the expansion areas to the north and northwest of the city.

Such are the cases of La Urbanization del Salado (Urdesa), Miraflores, El Paraíso, etc., It

should be noted that the Board of Charity itself, urbanizes a residential citadel, "Los Ceibos",

on the other hand, they buy land to develop programs of housing such as the Bolivarian

Citadel, (1957-1962) The Caja del Seguro, The Ecuadorian Housing Bank builds La

Atarazana, etc.

The evolution of the city of Guayaquil has been marked by the economic movement.

It characterizes from being a city lacking infrastructure at the end of the 19th century, where

architecture and traditional materials predominated, to become a city with all the needed

services and infrastructure. The city became the commercial center, with an architecture in

accordance with the economic boom in which it was immersed in the cocoa period, in the

1920s approximately, energized by the communication routes and the means of transportation

that directed all the activities to the most important port in Ecuador. The foreign contribution

was expressed in the Italian neoclassical style, since the main immigrant architects were from

this European country. The agro-export bourgeoisie expressed its economic power through

the eclectic style, in which reinforced concrete began to be used, displacing wood as the

predominant construction materials. In this way, a contrast between the different social

classes can be observed in the city, the popular class uses wood and vernacular forms while
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the wealthy class and the State begin to use materials of high technological grade for this time

and eclectic models in architectural solutions.

Pier avenues and 9 de October avenues become the main axis of commerce, as well as

economic and administrative, where the majority of private buildings are built, where the

bourgeoisie chooses to invest their capital due to the lack of opportunity in the agricultural

aspect for its global decline. In the 1930s you can already see specific works with modern

influence, although architecture with neoclassical schemes can still be seen, it is already

beginning to diversify and use functional and constructive guidelines adopted from Europe

and the USA. At the end of the decade, 5-6-storey buildings began to be built mainly for

offices and commercial use, replacing mixed construction. Later in the 1940s and 1950s, the

Ecuadorian economy allowed an accumulation of capital, thanks mainly to the banana boom.

Rationalism is already beginning to be felt and the bourgeoisie expresses its new interests and

ideologies through this style. In the city the real estate market begins to move, the center is

involved in a vertical growth that means higher income for developers, urbanizations are

generated mainly to the north of the city for the middle and upper class, while the State with

its great tax revenue carries out the first works to counteract the housing problem

Between 1950 and 1960 the use of reinforced concrete prevailed and the architectural

codes representative of the Modern Movement were consolidated. The rationalist

Lecorbusian influence comes to the country mainly from Brazil, and with this the first

buildings in this line, in which pure volumes predominate and all kinds of ornamentation are

eliminated; being the Multifamily Blocks promoted by the State clear examples of this

architectural simplification of rationalist schemes.

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Methods

The methodology to be used will be the bibliographic historical research. Through

this method we will use the documentary file resources relevant to the subject of study,

interviews with those who could relate facts regarding the time and the specific subject. The

authors we chose to quote are relevant in the fields of study, we primarily quote

Guayaquilean Architects whose work developed during the rise of Modern Movement in

Guayaquil, making them part of it. Furthermore, we chose to quote the economic research

work of former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, since he well documented and analyzed

the economic events which are responsible for the emergence and fall of the Modern

Movement in Guayaquil.

References:

Alcivar, M., Lee, P., & Rojas , M. (1980). 1930-1960: análisis de la producción arquitectónica

en Guayaquil. Guayaquil, Guayas, Ecuador: Universidad Católica de Santiago de

Guayaquil.

Compte, F. (2015). Emergencia de la arquitectura moderna en Guayaquil. Obtenido de

Academia:

https://www.academia.edu/download/60663208/Paper_Cordoba20190921-17946-

p3qacz.pdf
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Compte, F. (2017). Guayaquil 1897-1950. Entre la utopía y el desencanto. In Modernidad y

vanguardia en américa latina 1930-1970Historia del arte y arquitectura (HiSTAA).

Obtenido de Universidad de Cuenca: https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?

codigo=7718032

Compte, F. (2018). ARQUITECTURA MODERNA DE GUAYAQUIL 1930-1948. Obtenido de

Universidad Católica de Guayaquil:

https://www.arquitecturapanamericana.com/arquitectura-moderna-de-guayaquil-

1930-1948/

Correa, R. (1996). El Reto del desarrollo : estamos preparados para el futuro? Quito:

Universidad San Francisco de Quito.

Mera, G., Wong, J., & Yu lee, P. (1991). Los arquitectos. Movimiento moderno Guayaquil

1940-1970. Facultad de Arquitectura y Diseño de la Universidad Católica de Santiago

de Guayaquil.

Rondon, C. (2020). ¿Que es la arquitectura moderna? Archistudent, 4-5.