Modernism without Modernity: The Rise of Modernist Architecture in Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina, 1890-1940

Mauro F Guillen

doi:10.1353/lar.2004.0032

Abstract

Why did machine-age modernist architecture diffuse to Latin America so quickly after its rise in Continental Europe during the 1910s and 1920s? Why was it a more successful movement in relatively backward Brazil and Mexico than in more affluent and industrialized Argentina? After reviewing the histori- cal development of architectural in these three countries, several ex- planations are tested against the comparative evidence. Standards of living, industrialization, sociopolitical upheaval, and the absence of working-class con- sumerism are found to be limited as explanations. As in Europe, Modernism dif- fused to Latin America thanks to state patronage and the professionalization of architects following an engineering model. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Latin American countries borrowed from Europe both the ideal of the oligarchical re- public, and the architectural eclecticism and monumentalism that still characterizes the Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City, the Avenida Cen- tral of Rio de Janeiro, and the Avenida de Mayo in Buenos Aires. French beaux-arts classicism appealed to the europhile-landed elites that ruled Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina for about one hundred years after inde- pendence in the 1810s (Gutierrez and Vinuales 1998, 162-65). Modern- ism in architecture only appeared on the Latin American scene after dramatic turning points, that is, in the wake of revolution and counter- revolution, the shift from upper-class rule to the rule of the masses, the introduction of nationalist economic development programs, and in some cases, the installation of authoritarian regimes seeking legitimacy through public works. The rise of a modernist architecture in Latin America only within a few years of its appearance in Europe was somewhat of an improbable event given the region's relative backwardness. Like Spain during the 1930s, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina are instances of modernism

Highlights

CitationsArchitect, University of Buenos Aires, UBA efghAntonio Bonet 1913-1989Architect, University cfh (Spanish-born) of BarcelonaAlejandro ChristopherseAnrch1it8ec6t,6E-co1le946 fh des Beaux-ArtsJulian Jaime Garcia 1875-1944 NufiezApprenticed architect fhAngel Guido 1896-1960Architect, University fh of C6rdobaJorge Ferrari Hardoy1914-1976
This paper focuses on the three most dynamic countries in the region-Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina-in order of their historical development of a modernist architecture
Modernist architecture diffused to Latin America just shortly inception in Europe, first to Mexico in the 1920s and to Br 1930s

Summary

A Mexican Modernism during the 1930S

The truly architectural revolutionary in Mexico was Ju a follower of Le Corbusier's functionalism He worked for both Obreg6n Santacilia and Villagran Garcia, was instrumental in the creation of the School of Engineering and chitecture at the National Polytechnic Institute In his capacity of chief architect of the Department of School C struction of the Ministry of Education, O'Gorman designed more thirty "inexpensive schools, economically built, with durable mater and as efficient as possible in spending the pueblo's money" (quote Burian 1997, 130; see Luna Arroyo 1973, 65, 117-18). O'Gorman designed workers' housing, apartment buildings, and artistic studios, among them the famous contiguou though separate quarters for his personal friends Diego Rivera and Frid Kahlo (1931-32), with its Corbusian zigzagging roofs and external helicoidal stairway Reflecting on his early years as an architect, he explained that "I didn't do architecture; I engineered buildings, using the same mental process by which one makes a dam, a bridge, a road, engineering works" (quoted in Fraser 2000, 46). Even foreign-born engineers turned-architects who moved to Argentina-like Hungary's Juan Kronfuss-embraced the attempt to produce a national style rooted in local traditions and accomplishments (De Paula 1984)

A Frustrated Modernism

12. El Arquitecto

CONCLUSION

Findings

Background