Archinect - News

MoMA exhibition on 20th-century Latin American design is a 'gem' says Michael Kimmelman

2024-04-05T13:31:00-04:00

The show is a gem. It focuses on domestic design from six countries (Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Venezuela), produced between 1940 and 1980. Latin America had entered a period of transformation, industrial expansion and creativity. Across the region, design was becoming institutionalized as a profession, opening up new avenues, especially for women.

Critic Michael Kimmelman has heaped praise on the 'Crafting Modernity: Design in Latin America, 1940–1980' MoMA exhibition in a new piece for The New York Times. As we reported in December of last year, the show looks at the growth of modernism through an industrial and entrepreneurial lens, using a selection of examples from well-known and revered architects and designers such as Joaquim Tenreiro, Lina Bo Bardi, and Oscar Niemeyer.

"The role that women and immigrants played in shaping professional design and developing a national design vocabulary in Latin America will be emphasized, including the work of designers such as Clara Porset in Mexico, Cornelis Zitman in Venezuela, and Susi Aczel in Argentina," MoMA said about their exhibition at the time.

Heatherwick Studio previews first South American project in Bogotá, Colombia

2024-03-21T16:45:00-04:00

Heatherwick Studio has made public details of a new project in Bogotá, Colombia, for a client in the higher education industry. The studio’s first South American design will be realized as a seven-story academic building and makerspace with a uniquely colorful facade composed of setbacks, free columns, planting, and small circular outdoor terraces.

The client is Bogotá’s Universidad Ean Design School, a 56-year-old private institution founded to provide "comprehensive training of people and stimulate their entrepreneurial aptitude so that its action contributes to the economic and social development of people."

Image: Heatherwick Studio/NOD

Traditional Werregue basket-making practices serve as the inspirations for the design, tipping off Heatherwick’s war on blandness and desire to elevate craft into a primary role in his building practice.

This homage to Colombia's Wounaan Indigenous community will serve as the new centerpiece of the campus, complementing the architecture of the su...

University of Miami's School of Architecture to design smart 'Silica City' concept for booming Guyana

2023-12-12T11:53:00-05:00

The University of Miami School of Architecture has announced its participation in a master planning project that will help develop a smart city in the capital region of Guyana, South America.

Both students and faculty from the school will join with others in UM’s Advanced Study of the Americas program, Herbert Business School, School of Nursing and Health Studies, and Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science to realize the project, which leverages their expertise in the fields of resilient design, sustainable architecture, climate science, nature systems, technology, and more.

'Silica City' is an 11,000-acre planned community of 60,000 people near the Guyana International Airport with residential plots, a city center, an 'Innovation Village' area, and AI-bolstered infrastructure. Preliminary design work has already begun via a new 12-student studio that was taught in the fall by former School of Architecture dean Jose A. Gelabert-Navia, who said: “You cannot devel...

How a Venezuelan shopping center became a prison

2019-01-29T14:00:00-05:00

A new interactive documentary from the BBC explores the Venezuelan shopping center that became one of the country's most notorious torture centers for political prisoners. Through interviews from ex-detainees, relatives, lawyers and human rights activists, the BBC aims to bring its mysterious history to light.

Designed by Pedro Neuberger, Dirk Bornhorst, and Jorge Romero Gutiérrez—and topped with one of Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes—El Helicoide was intended as the world's first drive-through mall. Conceived at the height of Venezuela's economic growth, the ambitious project promoted a narrative of progress centered around consumerism, car culture, and social mobility.

However, the economic and political upheaval in 1950s Venezuela caused the project to fall apart, halting construction and leaving it empty for many years. Eventually, it was taken over by the government, who used it as a temporary flood shelter before adapting it as the headquarters for Venezuela's intelligenc...

A plastic pavilion dazzles in Mexico City through innovation and discourse

2019-01-16T11:56:00-05:00

Showcased during the Mextrópoli International Festival of Architecture, one of the largest festivals in Latin America with over 50,000 people in attendance, I-CONO dazzles the streets of Mexico City. Aimed at creating and sparking discussion around architecture and the city architects, students, locals, and tourists from all over come to the event. The 2018 project winners, Bianchimajer and Anna Merci, were chosen to headline the festival's Mextrópoli Pavilion structure with I-CONO. Made of 2500 plastic bottles and standing a little over 21 feet high, the project reflects on the public's interaction with architecture and the city. The public piece creates an immersive sensorial display, allowing visitors to be transformed through sound, light, shadow, and color all while standing in one of Mexico City's most famous plazas. The pavilion strives to spark thoughts and discussions of how the architecture of Mexico City can be understood and juxtaposed with a temporary public installatio...

William McDonough + Partners unveil their first Latin American Cradle to Cradle-designed building in Bogota

2017-09-07T17:39:00-04:00

The architecture firm of William McDonough, who co-developed the Cradle to Cradle design philosophy, unveiled the scheme for a new 20,000 square-meter academic building at the Universidad EAN in Bogota. The project marks the firm's first signature building in Latin America. They also hope the new building will be a catalyst for integrating more Cradle to Cradle Certified products in Colombia's building industry.

The building's main feature will be a colorful, perforated sun shade, which will be constructed using McDonough's WonderFrame™ technology. The panels will block glare while provide views, and energy, water, and resource use will be optimized. For natural ventilation, solar chimneys will draw air through the building and exhaust it at the roof.

Featuring 10 floors above ground, the scheme comprises science labs, classrooms, administrative offices, seminar rooms, as well a...

LA's Grand Ave to get a color makeover

2017-08-23T12:43:00-04:00

The Broad announced today that it will present a new work from Venezuelan-born artist Carlos Cruz-Diez (b. 1923), in collaboration with the Cruz-Diez Art Foundation. Couleur Additive has been commissioned by The Broad as part of the Getty Initiative, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, a far-reaching and ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles, taking place from September 2017 through January 2018 at more than 70 cultural institutions across Southern California.

Similar public installation done by the artist for Miami Art Basel, 2013

Installation of the public artwork will take place on four crosswalks at the intersection of West Second Street and Grand Avenue from Sept. 1 through Sept. 3. The work can be experienced by the public beginning Sept. 5, 2017 and will be on view into 2018. As part of the installation, and in order to further deepen the project’s ties to the Grand Avenue arts community, high school students from the nearby Ramon C. Cor...

A new urbanism in the Global South

2017-08-16T15:43:00-04:00

But what is the repertoire of concepts, ideas and visions that inform the work of urban planners in the Global South — in Asia, Latin America and Africa? Are they still under the spell of their colonial and postcolonial masters? Or have they developed their own ideas and their own yardsticks, commensurate with the respective culture of their country and region?

"This insight leads to the most important quality of sustainable urban planning in countries of the Global South," urban planning expert Einhard Schmidt-Kallert writes in his commentary piece on Citiscope, arguing that "Planners need to develop urban planning visions that take into consideration the needs of all citizens, of the urban middle class as well as those of the urban poor in informal settlements. Those visions need to translate these needs into a comprehensive concept plan for an entire city, thus overcoming fragmentation and segregation."

São Paulo named Grand Prize Winner in 2016 Mayors Challenge

2016-12-01T18:45:00-05:00

As part of this year’s Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge, the Brazilian megacity drafted a proposal for a digital interchange platform designed to connect vendors with restaurants, markets, and other retailers in an effort to make it easier for them to sell their wares. On Wednesday, São Paulo’s proposal was named the winner of the third ever Mayors Challenge, which gives it a $5 million cash prize to implement the idea.

"Four other cities will also receive $1 million each to implement their respective proposals. The winners include two Colombian cities, Medellín and Bogotá, as well as Santiago, Chile, and Guadalajara, Mexico."

Click here to learn more about the winning proposal "São Paulo: Growing Farmers’ Income, Shrinking Urban Sprawl."

Holistic design tool HOMEKIT takes on issues of resilient community and sustainability in rural Colombia

2016-06-28T13:14:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by Boston Architectural College.

Population growth and lack of shelter are the main indicators of increased poverty in developing countries. Every year, millions of people in rural communities in tropical climates migrate to cities in search of a better life. Informal settlements proliferate on the cities’ peripheries. However, what often awaits them is misfortune: few employment opportunities, lack of clean water, crowded housing spaces, crime, and other threats to their family traditions and lifestyle.

The HOMEKIT training program educates people in rural areas to sustainably cultivate bamboo and empower their villages to be self-reliant and to meet their own shelter needs. The system reduces forest depletion and contributes to the socioeconomic infrastructure of the villages. It provides safe, dignified, highly functional homes that respond to the local environment and natural disasters, connects people with the natural systems that support them, and he...

Halfway there? The limits to Aravena's social housing

2016-06-14T12:52:00-04:00

"In most cities in Latin America, most of the building over last 50 years—depending on the city—40, 50, 60, 70 percent has been through incremental construction.” [...] The majority of Aravena’s social housing work has also rested on the unique conditions and high level of investment from Chile’s social housing program. [...] Isn’t asking the poor to shoulder more of the housing burden an inherently unfair proposition?

More discussion of Aravena's practice and impact can be found here:

How Havana tries to come out of its crumbling shell without betraying Cuba's revolutionary roots

2016-04-25T19:26:00-04:00

I’m on a walking tour with two dozen international architects and urban designers, as we imagine a theoretical future for Havana. The walk is part of a charrette—an exercise that gives professionals and community members a voice on urban development when there is no formal mechanism to do so, as has been the case in crumbling Havana. [...] As the Cuban government slowly loosens restrictions on private enterprise, one wonders if the gentrification of Havana is inevitable.

Selling Cuba (Gehry's already there)

2016-02-01T14:16:00-05:00

“I give it two years, max [...] It will be US business interests that finally push congress into lifting the embargo – they’re all going crazy being shut out of this market.” American architects and developers are already queuing up to be first in line, ready to pounce on investment opportunities when the embargo drops. Frank Gehry sailed into Havana in December, aboard a streamlined yacht he designed for himself, here to “offer his expertise to Cuba” according to a government statement.

“You know that Cuba is at the centre of attention of many people,” Gehry told the gathered crowd. “And in the immediate future it will attract many investors – particularly the tourism sector. But I am sure that you know to be careful with those projects.”

Take a look at Rafael Viñoly's new circular bridge in Uruguay

2016-01-21T13:13:00-05:00

Why build a straightforward bridge for an unremarkable sum when the same bridge could be built as a circle for vast amounts of money? A new bridge spanning (or circumnavigating) Laguna Garzón, a coastal lagoon in southeastern Uruguay, poses just that question. [...] At a glance, it’s the sort of ridiculousness that you might expect of a bridge in London. In fact, there’s a perfectly good functional explanation for it.

"The concept of the Puente Laguna Garzón was to transform a traditional vehicular crossing into an event that reduces the speed of the cars, to provide an opportunity to enjoy panoramic views of an amazing landscape and at the same time create a pedestrian place in the center," the architect explained the unusual bridge concept.

Other Viñoly-related news stories on Archinect:

Chilean architecture is coming out of its shell

2015-05-18T13:41:00-04:00

Chilean architects have begun to exert an influence well beyond the size and scale of their string-bean nation. [...] “There are enough people working here in a way that shifts the art,” explains Aravena, sitting in the middle of his firm’s buzzing Santiago offices. “There is healthy competition and there is critical mass. When you have a critical mass, you are not alone in trying to push boundaries.” The result: remarkable buildings all over Chile.

The New York Times reviews MoMA exhibit, Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980

2015-05-01T11:12:00-04:00

The exhibition recalls an earlier era when architects there believed that social challenges should be tackled by design, that humane societies deserved beautiful new forms, and progressive development put faith in art, nature and the resilience of ordinary people.

Michael Kimmelman of The New York Times wrote a review on the recent MoMA exhibit, ‘Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980’. The exhibit highlights the work of Oscar Niemeyer, Lina Bo Bardi, Eladio Dieste, Rogelio Salmona and others who helped define Latin American modern architecture. On display are photographs, videos, drawings, blueprints and models. Some models shown in Kimmelman's article feature the work of University of Miami students who collaborated with MoMA on this exhibit.

NY exhibitions reflect on Latin American midcentury architecture + design

2015-03-30T16:01:00-04:00

Until the advent of cable television and then the Internet, Latin Americans, creators and consumers alike, were often more aware of trends in Europe and the United States than in nations neighboring theirs: Whatever similarities in style that emerged regionally were largely the result of discrete, parallel responses to the challenges of urbanization, poverty and the need to somehow integrate modernity and tradition.

Midcentury architecture and design from the Latin America region seems to be a trend in recent exhibitions in MoMA, MAD, and Americas Society in New York. New York Times writer Larry Rohter compares and contrasts the exhibitions, which shed light on the all-too-familiar tension of integrating globalized innovation with local traditions and techniques that was present throughout Latin American architecture and design.

New documentary showcases Bolivia's “spaceship architecture”

2015-02-23T13:29:00-05:00

The architect Freddy Mamani Silvestre’s extravagant urban mansions in El Alto, Bolivia, have been derided as kitschy-looking cohetillos, meaning “spaceships”—giving his work the nickname “spaceship architecture.” But the admirers of Freddy Mamani, as he is generally known, say his colorful “new Andean” style has also served to reinvent a city once aesthetically monochromatic, and that he has found a way to bring traditional Andean and Tiwanaku cultures into an urban setting.

Previously: 'Neo-Andean' architecture sprouts in Bolivia

Regional winners for Holcim Awards 2014 - Latin America

2014-10-06T14:08:00-04:00

The Holcim Awards 2014 announced the winners for the Latin America competition. During the recent awards ceremony in Medellín, 12 projects from throughout Latin America were recognized as models of sustainable construction that demonstrate the evolving state of sustainable construction and the Holcim Awards standards of environmental, social and economic performance...

The Latin America regional awards ceremony is the third in a series of five events following Moscow for Europe and Toronto for North America.

Here's a few of the Holcim Latin America regional winners:

(Above) Holcim Awards Gold 2014: Articulated Site: Water reservoirs as public park
MAIN AUTHORS: Mario Fernando Camargo Gómez - Colectivo720, Cali, Colombia; Luis Orlando Tombé Hurtado - Colectivo720, Cali, Colombia

Holcim Awards Silver 2014: Arboreal Platform: Low-impact timber rainforest center
MAIN AUTHORS: Román Jesús Cordero Tovar - PLUG architecture, Mérida, Mexico
FURTHER AUTHOR(S): Izbeth Katia Mendoza Fragoso - PLUG architecture, Mérida, Mexico

Holcim Awards Bronze 2014: Children’s House: Pedagogically-aligned school
MAIN AUTHORS: Francisco Pardo - AT103, Mexico City, Mexico; Julio Amezcua - AT103, Mexico City, Mexico

Acknowledgement Prize: Breathing Envelope: Vertically-stacked convention center and public spaces
MAIN AUTHORS: Daniel Bermúdez Samper - Daniel Bermúdez Arquitecto, Bogot...

Buenos Aires's citizens take to the courts to save the 'Paris of South America' from bulldozers

2014-09-29T13:29:00-04:00

Buenos Aires has not traditionally been concerned about preservation. Only a handful of buildings remain from the colonial years after the city's founding in 1536 in what is now the old San Telmo tourist district. The Parisian architecture of the early 20th century has also been shrinking because of the property boom that accompanied a renewed spurt of economic growth in the last decade until 2013.

'Neo-Andean' architecture sprouts in Bolivia

2014-05-27T14:09:00-04:00

Brash, baroque and steeped in native Andean symbols, the mini-mansions are a striking sight on the caked-dirt streets of El Alto, the inexorably expanding sister city of Bolivia's capital. They attest to a new class of indigenous nouveau riche, many of them merchants who converted street stalls into fortunes. [...] The mini-mansions mesh modern and traditional architecture and flaunt, above all, two things: their owners' wealth and their Aymara heritage.

Latin America: A New Generation of Women Architects

2012-09-20T16:11:00-04:00

Yet women architects in Latin America — as in North America — continue to confront gender-based inequities. Partly this seems due to entrenched cultural attitudes, and partly to the traditional connections between architecture, engineering and capital, which can make it difficult to progress to a less patriarchal culture of building and design.

Places presents highlights from the exhibition Spaces Through Gender, now on view in San Francisco, with exemplary work by Latin American designers Tatiana Bilbao, Fernanda Canales, Frida Escobedo Lopez, Rozana Montiel, Nora Enriquez, Rocio Romero, Galia Solomonoff, Catalina Patiño and Viviana Peña (of the collective Ctrl G), Ana Elvira Velez, Carla Juacaba, and Sandra Vivanco.