Archinect - News

Mexico's mass residential construction program decays into slums

2017-11-27T20:07:00-05:00

It was a Levittown moment for Mexico — a test of the increasingly prosperous nation’s first-world ambitions. But Mexico fell disastrously short of creating that orderly suburbia. The program has devolved into a slow-motion social and financial catastrophe, inflicting daily hardships and hazards on millions in troubled developments across the country.

The Mexican government collaborated with private developers to undertake the largest residential construction program in all of Latin America. From 2001 to 2012, an estimated 20 million people moved into newly built developments. The program cost more than $100 billion promising affordable housing to one sixth of Mexico's population. Yet most of this new suburbia was improperly built leading to the eventual breakdown of these communities.

On the outside these developments appeared normal, however as residents moved in the structural issues became apparent. These new suburban developments were in many cases abandoned by builders leaving unfinished communities and services. Incomplete or broken waste water systems and electrical grids lead to sewage in the streets and fires in the homes. Water treatment plants broke and were never repaired leaving many of the developments without running water for years now. Improperly built houses were destroyed by flooding resulting in many of the ...

Ricardo Porro, Cuban National Art School Architect, Dies at 89

2014-12-30T13:19:00-05:00

Ricardo Porro, an architect who gave lyrical expression to a hopeful young Cuban revolution in the early 1960s before he himself fell victim to its ideological hardening, died on Thursday in Paris, where he had spent nearly half a century in exile. He was 89. His death was confirmed by friends and associates, including John Loomis, the author of “Revolution of Forms: Cuba’s Forgotten Art Schools.”

School of Modern Dance, by Ricardo Porro

School of Plastic Arts, by Ricardo Porro

To learn more about the Cuban National Art School project and the related documentary Unfinished Spaces, click here.

“Unfinished Spaces” documentary receives 2014 SAH Award for Film and Video

2014-04-18T15:10:00-04:00

Unfinished Spaces by Alysa Nahmias and Benjamin Murray continues to gain recognition since its initial release in 2011. In addition to previous grants and awards, the documentary film recently won the 2014 Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) Award for Film and Video at the 2014 Annual Conference in Austin, Texas. Established in 2013, the annual award is given to the most distinguished international work of film or video on the history of the built environment.

Reflective of its Cuban Revolution setting in 1961, Unfinished Spaces tells the complex tale of Cuba's historic National Art Schools project commissioned by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara to visionary architects Ricardo Porro, Vittorio Garatti, and Roberto Gottardi. Construction of the school complex immediately began and artists from all over the country attended the school. But the project was abruptly halted as soon as the Revolution came to fruition.

Forty years later, the schools continue to operate but have remained unfinished. Castro has invited the exiled architects back to finally complete their unrealized dream.

See the official trailer below.

Also check out Archinect's previous coverage of Unfinished Spaces here.

Editor's Picks #286

2012-10-16T00:11:00-04:00

Alex Maymind highlighted the work of Cornell studio "Ungers vs. Rowe" in a piece titled ARCHIPELAGOS: Ungers vs. Rowe. Both the studio and feature, articulate "a theoretical argument about two divergent Cornell legacies: one, O.M. Ungers and the other, Colin Rowe as exemplary urban design positions that after some forty years remain still operative in today’s context". Mr. Maymind further argues that "Both Ungers and Rowe share an overwhelming concern for the deployment and manipulation of precedent (with all of the baggage the term implies) as the basis for making and conceptualizing form". The studio featured two groups of two students, each assigned either Ungers or Rowe, as source material. Steven Ward commented "beautiful work. man, i would have loved this studio" and even Thayer-D agreed "Ultimately, the main source of apprehension in dealing with these two figures comes from the fact that they both sought to criticize the status quo, which is still very much alive"

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Unfinished Spaces premieres tomorrow night on PBS; Archinect talks to the filmmaker

2012-10-11T17:54:00-04:00

Unfinished Spaces, a film that we've previously covered here on Archinect, is a documentary about the ambitious Cuban National Art School project, conceived, and ultimately killed, by the revolutionary communist Cuban regime.

In addition to an exhaustive schedule of screenings, it will be televised, for the first time, tomorrow night on PBS (10pm).

In 1961, three young, visionary architects were commissioned by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara to create Cuba's National Art Schools on the grounds of a former golf course in Havana, Cuba. Construction of their radical designs began immediately and the school's first classes soon followed. Dancers, musicians and artists from all over the country reveled in the beauty of the schools, but as the dream of the Revolution quickly became a reality, construction was abruptly halted and the architects and their designs were deemed irrelevant in the prevailing political climate. Forty years later the schools are in use, but remain unfinished and dec...

Foster for Cuban Ballet School, A Dance Of What?

2012-09-11T15:57:00-04:00

"You have to accept that 50 years have gone by, but the changes should be done by the architect who was in charge. If this architect is no longer able, this is another thing. But the last time I saw Garatti, he was thinking clearly. So there's no reason to put him aside. I don't think it's ethical."

British architect Sir Norman Foster jumps on the opportunity to remodel iconic and unfinished Cuban National Art Schools. But one of the the original architects, Roberto Gottardi, is still alive. (via Alexis Navarro)

Also see; Revolution of Forms: Cuba's Forgotten Art Schools by John A. Loomis

What Is It About Cuba's National Art Schools?

2012-02-28T04:28:00-05:00

After I mentioned attending a screening of the new documentary film, Unfinished Spaces, about the National Art Schools in Havana, [my dinner companion] burst out: “What is it about the Art Schools? Why do foreigners love them so much? There’s nothing Cuban about those buildings. They’re ridiculous architecture for Havana and I always hated them.”

On Places, architect Belmont Freeman reconsiders the National Art Schools in Havana — the subject of John Loomis's groundbreaking book Revolution of Forms, as well as a new documentary film and an opera, and a cult favorite among architecture buffs. Does the North American obsession with the art schools carry a whiff of latent colonialism, or even racism? Freeman argues that the dramatic saga of the art schools has obscured the larger narrative of post-revolutionary Cuban architecture.

Unfinished Spaces: Film Review

2011-06-22T00:53:50-04:00

An excellent documentary about a spectacular but unfinished architectural project that strongly reflects the arc of the Cuban experience of the past 60 years.

The Hollywood Reporter reviews Unfinished Spaces, as mentioned here last week.

"Unfinished Spaces" to premiere this weekend in Los Angeles

2011-06-16T18:23:00-04:00

In 1961, three young, visionary architects were commissioned by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara to create the world's most beautiful art school on the grounds of a former golf course in Havana, Cuba. Construction of their radical designs began immediately and the school's first classes soon followed. But as the dream of the Revolution quickly became a reality, construction was abruptly halted and the architects and their designs were deemed irrelevant in the prevailing political climate.

A friend in the independent film industry has mentioned that this film is getting rave reviews. It will be premiering this weekend at the Los Angeles Film Festival. View the trailer here.

UNFINISHED SPACES
Following their emotional exile from Cuba in 1965, three architects return forty years later to finish what was considered the world's most spectacular and futuristic art school, but was left to ruin by the country's Revolution.

In 1961, three young, visionary architects were commissioned by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara to create Cuba's National Art Schools on the grounds of a former golf course in Havana, Cuba. Construction of their radical designs began immediately and the school's first classes soon followed. Dancers, musicians and artists from all over the country reveled in the beauty of the schools, but as the dream of the Revolution quickly became a reality, construction was abruptly halted and the architects and their designs were deemed irrelevant in the prevaili...