MoMA Unveils Major Latin American Architecture Survey
Oscar Niemeyer. Cathedral Under Construction, Brasilia, Brazil.
Image courtesy Arquivo Publico do Distrito Federal
Affonso Eduardo Reidy. Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro (MAM), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1934-1947.
Photo © Núcleo de Documentação e Pesquisa – Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Lúcio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer. Plaza of the three powers, Brasilia, Brazil, 1958-1960.
Photo © Leonardo Finotti
Lina Bo Bardi. São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP), Sao Paulo, Brazil. Drawing. Graphite, and ink on paper. Completed 1968.
Image courtesy Instituto Lina Bo e Pietro Maria Bardi
Amancio Williams. Hospital in Corrientes, Corrientes, Argentina, 1948-1953.
Image courtesy Amancio Williams Archive
Clorindo Testa. Bank of London and South America, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1959-1966.
Photo © Archivo Manuel Gomez Piñeiro, Courtesy of Fabio Grementieri
Emilio Duhart. The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL), Santiago, Chile, 1962-1966.
Image courtesy PUC Archivo de Originales
Hermano Martin Corréa, Hermano Gabriel Guarda, Patricio Gross, Raúl Ramirez. Benedictine Monastery Chapel, Santiago, Chile, 1964.
Image courtesy PUC Archivo de Originales
Rogelio Salmona. Torres del Parque Residencial Complex, Bogotá, Colombia, 1964-1970.
Photo © Leonardo Finotti
Esguerra Sáenz y Samper. Luis Ángel Arango Library (Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango), Bogotá, Colombia. Cover plan of concert hall. 1965. Drawing, ink on tracing paper.
Image courtesy Archivo de Bogotá
National School of Plastic Arts, Havana, Cuba, Ricardo Porro, 1961-1965.
Photo © Archivo Vittorio Garatti
Augusto H. Álvarez. Banco del Valle de Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico 1958.
Photo © Guillermo Zamora. Archivo de Arquitectos Mexicanos, Facultad de Arquitectura, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Juan Sordo Madaleno. Edificio Palmas 555, Mexico City, Mexico 1975.
Photo © Guillermo Zamora. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Sordo Madaleno Arquitectos
Eduardo Terrazas. Triennale di Milano, Mexican Pavilion. 1968. Interior view with design based on Olympic logo by Terrazas and Lance Wyman and printed matter by Beatrice Trueblood.
Image courtesy Eduardo Terrazas Archive
Walter Weberhofer Quintana. View of Atlas Building, Lima, 1953.
Photo © Archive Walter Weberhofer
Miguel Rodrigo Mazuré (Peruvian, 1926–2014). (Peruvian, 1926–2014). Hotel in Machu Picchu, Machu Picchu (Project). 1969. Perspective.
Image courtesy Archivo Miguel Rodrigo Mazuré
Miguel Rodrigo Mazuré. Chavez House, Lima, 1958.
Photo © Archivo Miguel Rodrigo Mazuré
Eladio Dieste. Church in Atlantida, Uruguay, 1958.
Photo © Leonardo Finotti
Eladio Dieste at Atlantida Church, Uruguay c. 1959.
Photo © Marcelo Sassón. Archivo Dieste y Montañez
Guillermo Jones Odriozola, Francisco Villegas Berro. Arcobaleno Recreation Complex (Conjunto Recreacional Arcobaleno), Punta del Este, Uruguay. 1960. Brochure.
Image courtesy Francisco Villegas Berro
Tomás José Sanabria. Hotel Humboldt, Caracas, Venezuela, 1956.
Photo © Fundación Alberto Vollmer
It has been 60 years since the Museum of Modern Art last dedicated an exhibition to the architecture of Latin America. A new survey, opening Sunday, proves another is long overdue. Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980 offers a sweeping panorama of one of the most fecund periods in the region’s architectural history—a quarter-century marked by rapid urbanization, shifting politics, and bold ideas.
The show’s primary goal, said curator Barry Bergdoll, is to “reinsert Latin America into our history of modernism and modernization in architecture.”
Organized by Bergdoll, curatorial assistant Patricio del Real, Jorge Francisco Liernur of the Universidad Torcuata di Tella in Buenos Aires, and Carlos Eduardo Comas of the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, along with an advisory committee spanning South and Central America, Latin America in Construction took years to coordinate.
The exhibition examines a broad range of topics, including urban planning, innovations in housing (both individual and multi-unit), university design, and civic and public spaces. More than 500 original works are on display—many shown for the first time—and include drawings, models, archival films, and photographs, from Lucio Costa’s airplane-shaped Pilot Plan for Brasilia on yellowing drafting paper to intricate specially-commissioned architectural models of preeminent structures.
The curators purposely excluded American or European architects working in the area, to instead show cross-pollination of ideas between local architects. One of the final sections in the exhibition, called “Export,” highlights the work of Latin American architects abroad including Carlos Raúl Villanueva’s Venezuelan Pavilion for the 1967 Montreal Expo, and Eduado Terrazas’ Mexican Pavilion for the 1968 Triennale di Milano.
Bergdoll acknowledged that the show merely grazes the surface of Latin American architecture during this period, but he said it represents an “opening anthology” for future discussions. “There are the makings of probably another 60 shows here,” he said.
Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980 is on view at the Museum of Modern Art from March 29 to July 19, 2015.
