Josep Lluis Research Articles

M. Michaelis: la fotografía como testimonio. Érase una vez en El Garraf

With the arrival of modernity, treatises and manuals were abandoned, giving way to histories, narratives, stories that could explain and justify the approach and formal evolution of buildings. The role of photography in this context became fundamental. In 1935, the Austrian photographer Margaret Michaelis captured, through a series of photographs, the recently inaugurated weekend homes in the Garraf, designed by the GATEPAC architects Josep Torres Clave and Josep Lluis Sert. The study of these images allows us to value the contribution of the work of the catalan architects in their interest in carrying out modern architecture with references to the popular and rural Mediterranean architecture. Through the construction of 3 weekend homes, defined from the combination of the same recognisable elements, the architects configured an architecture, that today can only be visited in Margaret Michaelis´s photographs. The aim of this work is to contribute to the recovery and enhancement of her point of view, anonymous and scarcely recognised until the time. Published in the magazine A.C: Documentos de Actividad Contemporanea —exhibited after Gropius or Helen and Szymon Syrkus works— only some of these photographs will travel in time and become a reference of interest among architects in the following decades, until our days. The current state of the buildings, and the remarkable changes on their configuration and context nowadays, make the photographs taken in 1935 a relevant testimony for the historiography of modern architecture, and can be considered its last reality.

Review: Ernest Weissmann: Socially Engaged Architecture, 1926–1939, by Tamara Bjažić Klarin

Tamara Bjažic Klarin Ernest Weissmann: Socially Engaged Architecture, 1926–1939 Zagreb: Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, 2015, 350 pp., 226 b/w illus. $57 (paper), ISBN 9789531541893 Tamara Bjažic Klarin's Ernest Weissmann , published in both Serbo-Croatian and English, is the first scholarly monograph available on this little-known yet highly significant figure in the history of modern architecture and urbanism. Based on extensive archival research, Klarin, described here as a “longtime associate of the Croatian Museum of Architecture,” offers a definitive and well-illustrated account of Weissmann's European career before 1939. She has consulted many Serbo-Croatian language archives in Zagreb and elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia, as well as the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin and the Ernest Weissmann Archive, which is now available at the Frances Loeb Library, Harvard Graduate School of Design. Ernest Weissmann (1903–85) grew up in the Croatian capital of Zagreb, in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He received his diploma in architecture there in 1926 from the Department of Architecture at the Technical School of Higher Education, today the University of Zagreb. In the late 1920s he moved to Paris and worked with Adolf Loos on the Tristan Tzara House in Montmartre (1927–29). With the help of Gabriel Guevrekian, Weissmann then joined Le Corbusier's atelier around the same time as Josep Lluis Sert, Charlotte Perriand, and Kunio Maekawa. These associates, all then working on the Centrosoyuz project in Moscow, would later be central figures in the Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne, founded in 1928. Once back …

Los dibujos de proyecto de J.L. Sert para la fundación Joan Miro de Barcelona

<p>Josep Ll. Sert ha sido uno de los arquitectos españoles de mayor prestigio internacional. Tras diversos años de exilio regresa a España de forma esporádica en la década de 1950. De ese periodo nacen los proyectos de la Fundación Maeght, Saint Paul de Vence, el estudio de Joan Miró en Mallorca y el de la Fundación Miró en Barcelona. El objetivo de este trabajo es el análisis formal del edificio y el gráfico de sus bocetos, puestos en contexto con otras obras de Sert y en el de su relación personal con Joan Miró y Joan Prats. La metodología de trabajo ha sido el análisis formal del museo comparándolo con otras obras suyas. En paralelo se ha estudiado el registro gráfico de Sert, demostrando como fue siempre fiel al mismo, en una síntesis perfecta entre pensamiento arquitectónico racional y su expresión gráfica.</p>

Entre Son Abrines y Son Boter. Miró en Mallorca

The text establishes relationships between painting and architecture in the architectural space. The writing creates links between space designed by Josep Lluis Sert and painting activity that Joan Miro performed in the building Son Abrines in Mallorca. One of the reasons why painting in Europe is shaped by itself, from Giotto to Picasso for example, is the relationship between space and use that canvas itself shows. Any painting of the time comes to present the mystery of an event by a pictorial content. Relations between space and use represented are the reason that often led the painter to develop a picture. In the case the study designed by Sert for Miro, the motive for research is to combine the work space and the space of painting from an interpretation to the painting without leaving the space which is gestated. The purpose is to reveal or display the contents of two distinctive programs of the twentieth century: housing and paint shop, from a concrete analysis environment Joan Miro and Josep Lluis Sert.

Health and Ritual in Morocco: Conceptions of the Body and Healing Practices, written by Josep Lluis Mateo Dieste

Health and Ritual in Morocco: Conceptions of the Body and Healing Practices, written by Josep Lluis Mateo Dieste

México y el CIAM Apuntes para la historia de la arquitectura moderna en México

Este ensayo analiza una serie de cartas1 entre el arquitecto alemán exiliado en México, Max Cetto, e importantes figuras de la arquitectura del siglo xx, entre las que destacan Sigfried Giedion, Walter Gropius y José Luis Sert. Estos documentos ofrecen un polé- mico panorama de la arquitectura mexicana de mediados del siglo pasado, e iluminan la malograda y hasta ahora poco explorada relación entre México y el ciam (Congrès Internacional d’Architecture Moderne)

Review: Josep Lluís Sert: A Nomadic Dream, by Pablo Bujosa Rodríguez, writer and director

Pablo Bujosa Rodriguez, writer and director Josep Lluis Sert: A Nomadic Dream Ale Produccions, Oberon Cinematografica, La Periferica Produccions, and IFFI Productions, 2013, 73 min., http://www.jlsertfilm.com/videos > I have my life divided in chapters that carry names of cities: Barcelona, Paris, New York and Boston—a nomadic life with too many changes—but no dull moments. > > —Josep Lluis Sert On 20 May 2015 the Graham Foundation screened Josep Lluis Sert: A Nomadic Dream , a film written and directed by Pablo Bujosa Rodriguez. This screening, which took place in Chicago, was only the second time the film had been made available for public viewing in the United States. The first screening was presented in 2013 at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, where Josep Lluis Sert served as dean from 1953 to 1969, to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of his death (Figure 1). MAS Studio, a Chicago-based firm directed by Iker Gil, cosponsored the second screening, and Gil introduced the event. The screening coincided with the publication of the “Legacy” issue (issue 25–26) of MAS Context , a quarterly journal dedicated to expanding conversations about architecture. In this issue, MAS Context defines legacy as “the buildings, places, books, ideas, and proposals that have left or will leave a strong mark on our urban environment.” The issue features an essay on Sert by Alexandra Lange, “Never-Loved Buildings Rarely Stand a Chance: Josep Lluis Sert in Cambridge,” that serves as an introduction to current thinking about Sert and his legacy, which are further developed in the film. Figure 1 Josep Lluis Sert ca. 1968 (Photo: Fundacio Joan Miro / Arxiu Josep Lluis Sert). With regard to Sert’s architecture, defining its legacy entails special consideration because Sert’s work has been lauded by the architectural community but not universally appreciated by the general public. Lange references Otile McManus’s 2003 essay “Why the Public (Still) Hates Peabody Terrace” and claims that …

Mifepristone versus placebo to treat uterine myoma: a double-blind, randomized clinical trial

ObjectiveTo evaluate the efficacy, safety, and quality of life of 5 mg mifepristone per day compared with a placebo in treating uterine fibroids.DesignRandomized, double-blind clinical study.LocationEusebio Hernández Gynecology and Obstetrics Teaching Hospital, Havana, Cuba.SubjectsOne hundred twenty-four subjects with symptomatic uterine fibroids.TreatmentOne daily capsule of 5 mg mifepristone or a mifepristone placebo over 3 months.Variables in evaluating safetyChanges in fibroid and uterine volumes, changes in symptom prevalence and intensity, and changes in quality of life.ResultsThree months into treatment, fibroid volume was reduced by 28.5% in the mifepristone group with an increase of 1.8% in the placebo group (P = 0.031). There were significant differences between the groups with respect to pelvic pain prevalence (P = 0.006), pelvic pressure (P = 0.027), rectal pain (P = 0.013), hypermenorrhea (P < 0.001), and metrorrhagia (P = 0.002) at the end of treatment. Amenorrhea was 93.1% and 4.3% in the mifepristone and placebo groups, respectively (P < 0.001). Treatment side effects were significantly greater in the mifepristone group. Estradiol levels did not differ significantly between the placebo and mifepristone groups at the end of treatment. Improvement in quality of life was significantly greater in the categories of “symptoms” (P = 0.004) and “activity” (P = 0.045) in the mifepristone group.ConclusionThe 5 mg dosage of mifepristone presented significantly superior efficacy compared to the placebo.

Review: Defining Urban Design: CIAM Architects and the Formation of a Discipline, 1937–69 by Eric Mumford

Eric Mumford . Defining Urban Design: CIAM Architects and the Formation of a Discipline, 1937–69 . New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009, 272 pp., 15 color, 91 b/w illus. $55, ISBN 9780300138887 In this meticulously documented book, Eric Mumford describes the formation of the influential Urban Design program at Harvard, emphasizing the role of its founders and their roots in the International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM). This research builds on two of Mumford's earlier publications: his 2000 book The CIAM Discourse on Urbanism, 1928–1960 ,1 which chronicles the international conferences in Europe, and his publication in 2008 with Hashim Sarkis, Josep Lluis Sert, The Architect of Urban Design, 1953–1969 .2 The latter is a book of essays on the architect who served as president of CIAM from 1947 to 1956 and directed the Harvard Urban Design program as dean and chairman of architecture at the Graduate School of Design between 1953 and 1969. Mumford's goal in the present work is to elucidate and defend the role that CIAM-influenced urban design played in America. He believes it has been misunderstood-that most people associate it unfairly with the wholesale demolition of urban areas and the building of inhumane high-rise housing inspired by Le Corbusier, while attributing a sensitive contextual approach to the rebuilding of cities to Jane Jacobs. Mumford describes numerous attempts to accommodate existing fabric in postwar plans and takes pains to explain how Le Corbusier's influence has been misconstrued, noting how his ideas changed over time. When he came to New York in 1935, for example, Mumford points out that the Swiss architect was much more interested in Rockefeller Center than in slum clearance housing projects (29). Defining Urban Design surveys early CIAM meetings and discusses the impact that the immigration of early participants from Europe had on American education. It describes the formation of the Harvard Urban Design program under Dean Joseph Hudnut in 1936 and Walter Gropius, who served as architecture chairman from 1937 to 1952. …

Defining urban design: CIAM architects and the formation of a discipline, 1937-69

In this meticulously researched book, Eric Mumford traces how members of the International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM), such as Walter Gropius, Josep Lluis Sert, and their American associates, developed the discipline of urban design from the 1940s to the 1960s. Now widely known, this field has had significant influence in university departments and building projects around the world, but its roots in the urbanism of CIAM are not well understood. CIAM proposed a new type of architecture, one that drew on the strategies of both modern art and engineering to promote efficiency and rational city planning. Mumford challenges the idea that this modern urbanism only resulted in the clearing of historical neighborhoods in favor of the public housing that would famously fail. Rather, Mumford argues, CIAM goals were instrumental in forming the field of urban design, and it was the rejection of these goals by politicians and bureaucrats, rather than their implementation, that led to the now familiar and lamentable results of urban renewal and metropolitan sprawl.

Josep Lluís Barona, Josep Bernabeu-Mestre, La salud y el estado: el movimiento sanitario internacional y la administración española (1851–1945), Universitat de València, 2008, pp. 366, illus., no price given (paperback 978-84-370-6974-6).

Josep Lluís Barona, Josep Bernabeu-Mestre, La salud y el estado: el movimiento sanitario internacional y la administración española (1851–1945), Universitat de València, 2008, pp. 366, illus., no price given (paperback 978-84-370-6974-6). - Volume 53 Issue 3

Sobre el teatre independent valencià i la nova escriptura teatral

This article aims to study the independent Valencian drama (1968-1978) especially the activity of the groups who work with the Catalan language. In the first part there is a review of the development of this movement, centered above all on the relationship that these groups had with the Valencian drama tradition. The second part reviews the most remarkable dramatists and groups of the period: Josep Lluis Sirera, Rodolf Sirera, Manuel Molins and the Group 49, Pluja Teatre and Juli Leal and Carnestoltes.

“Faith in a Better Future”: Josep Lluis Sert's American Embassy in Baghdad

The following essay considers Josep Lluis Sert's American Embassy in Baghdad (1955–1961) as an attempt to project a new basis for American political influence abroad that was compatible with a rapidly changing postcolonial world. Although the United States began its program of embassy construction to accord with its new role as a world power, the government required architects to be sensitive to local conditions of the site and the host country. In Iraq, this meant distinguishing America from both a rival Soviet Union and from England, America's ally but increasingly despised by Iraqis for its uninvited sway over their government, as well as addressing questions of climate and local construction capacities. To negotiate political complexities of the cold war and to balance American ambitions with local conditions, Sert drew on a modernism that was itself in the process of transition due in part to its application to a broader range of building types and social tasks, of which the embassy program is an instance, and in part to the representational pressures such institutional patronage entails.

Super Veloz: A Typographic System for the Small Printer

Fig. 1) Brilliant exercise in colors, published in the catalogs of NOVADAM, a Joan Trochut original, completely built with combinable pieces of Super Veloz. The development of an industrially advanced type design such as Super Veloz, which was designed by Joan Trochut in 1942, in so tragic a time for Spaniards as the early 1940s, seems amazing from today's perspective. The historical period in which this type is located, the brutal period following the Spanish Civil War in its most impure and stentorian years of Francoism, must be considered accidental. In reality, the process started much earlier, in the 1930s. This decade was a particularly significant time for the Spaniards, who were joyfully beginning an inspired and moving collective adventure, having been shaken by 100 years of traditional rulers: kings, cardinals, or generals. During Spain's republican decade, all intellectual activities developed in an extraordinary way, fomented by a euphoric social spirit which generated a spate of work that was profoundly Spanish, despite its universality. Works by Federico Garcia Lorca, Jose Ortega y Gasset, Manuel de Falla, Pau Casals, Luis Bunuel, Josep Lluis Sert, and others are examples. In the 1930s, graphic design reached a peak that has yet to be surpassed. The Spanish poster reached its apogee in the midst of the Spanish Civil War, an epic struggle for freedom that was passionately defended by the leading design professionals in the country. The civil war posters are the best-known products of those years. The quality of the new designers had already been recognized by the most reputable European critics. Some of these young designers were already on their way to becoming models of their epoch: the poster artist and master of photomontage Josep Renau, whom exile took to Mexico and East Germany before he returned to Spain in the body of a scarcely recognized mythical character; the poster artist Antoni Clave, exiled in Paris and happily transformed at present into a successful painter; and the typographer Enric Crous Vidal, transplanted from his warm birthplace of Lleida to a gray and gloomy Paris where he tried to find a common denominator for his Latin roots, searching for the typeface Mediterranean in a succession of celebrated designs. In the 1930s, Joan Trochut was a teenager with a solid base of typographic knowledge received from his father. He inhaled the