The Works of Frank Lloyd Wright: His Influence and Legacy in South America. Le Corbusier. Part 13. (GBMB)
hugoklico Deja un comentario Editar
The Early Reception of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Work in Argentina (1)
Read the previous article https://onlybook.es/blog/las-obras-de-frank-lloyd-wright-parte-12-conferencias-en-princeton-y-la-casa-walker/
Key Figures in the Dissemination of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Work in South America
Both Bruno Zevi (1918–2000) and Enrico Tedeschi (1910–1978) played a decisive role in the dissemination of organic architecture in Argentina. Zevi visited the country twice, first in 1951 and again in 1980 on the occasion of the Second International Conference of Architectural Critics (CICA). It was his 1951 visit, however, that had the greatest impact, coinciding with the translation and publication in Spanish of his principal works. Tedeschi, in turn, settled in Argentina in 1948, where he developed an extensive academic and professional career, becoming a key figure in the transformation of the country’s architectural culture.
Zevi’s advocacy of Frank Lloyd Wright’s organic architecture represented a critical alternative to the rationalism of the 1930s, which he associated with the formal and cultural values of the Fascist period.
Both, who had collaborated in the APAO (Association for Organic Architecture) and on the journal Metron, emphasized organic architecture’s ability to create a continuous and fluid interior space, underscoring its humanistic character.
Architect Francisco «Pancho» Liernur (1946) points out that the project House for a Doctor in Córdoba, by architect Carlos Lange (1913–1967), published in the journal Nuestra Arquitectura in 1942, is one of the earliest works inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture in Argentina.
In Chile, Josué Smith Solar (1867–1938), a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, became acquainted with the work of Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) while working in the state of Delaware, United States
Among his most notable works are the Vizcachas Administration Building (1905) and the Recard Chalet, in Papudo (1912).
During these years, the architectural historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock (1903–1987) published In the Nature of Materials: The Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright, 1887–1941 (1942), a book that played a decisive role in the international dissemination of Wright’s work and later served as the basis for the Spanish edition published by Gustavo Gili. It also inspired a generation of architecture students, including Luis Alberto Sartori Hevia (1936–2008), Ricardo Alegría Gallardo (1921–2011), José Covacevich, and O’Higgins Palma.
In Uruguay, Frank Lloyd Wright’s influence is particularly evident in the work of architect Román Fresnedo Siri (1903–1975). Two representative examples in Montevideo are the Barreira House (1941), located at 1257 General Artigas Boulevard, and the Faculty of Architecture building, designed in collaboration with architect Mario Muccinelli, at 1031 General Artigas Boulevard.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Visit to Brazil
Frank Lloyd Wright’s visit to Brazil has received far less attention than Le Corbusier’s (1887–1965) journeys to South America. Le Corbusier made his first trip between September and December 1929, visiting Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil, where he delivered lectures and established contacts that influenced the development of modern architecture in the region. He returned to Brazil in 1936 to serve as a consultant on the Ministry of Education and Health building in Rio de Janeiro.
Between 1947 and 1962, Le Corbusier made five additional trips to Colombia. In 1964, he was invited to design the French Embassy in Brasília, a project that was never built owing to his death and subsequent changes to the program. He never visited Brasília. The embassy was eventually designed by the Chilean architect Guillermo Jullian de la Fuente (1931–2008), a former member of Le Corbusier’s atelier.
Architectural historian Roberto Segre (1934–2013) wrote of Le Corbusier: “Beyond strictly architectural concerns, his reflections on his South American experiences emphasized the profound impact—indeed, the fascination—produced by the exuberant and sinuous figures of the Carioca mulatas, culminating in the drawing of the full breasts of La Manga.” (3)
“In all the compositions of this period, the combination of natural objects, female figures, and forms derived from the Purist vocabulary represented a liberation for Jeanneret, marking a shift from a strict geometric order to one in which lines and colors, through their complementary functions, defined a new spatial organization.”
The introduction of the human figure into Le Corbusier’s paintings has been linked both to his separation from Amédée Ozenfant (1886–1966), with whom he ended his collaboration in 1925, and to his relationship with Yvonne Gallis (1892–1957), which began in 1922 and led to her becoming his muse, wife, and lifelong companion. However, Jeanneret’s interest in the female body predated these events. Between 1917 and 1918 he produced watercolors depicting female figures, harem scenes, and compositions inspired by the sculptures of his friend François-Rupert Carabin (1862–1932). He is also known to have owned a collection of photographs assembled by Carabin, consisting largely of models and prostitutes.
On Sketches by Le Corbusier—Journey to the East and Paris Brothels, see https://onlybook.es/blog/sketches-de-le-corbusier-viaje-a-oriente-y-burdeles-de-paris/
As noted by the Egyptian art historian Samir Rafi (1926–2004), another source of inspiration for Le Corbusier was his discovery of Algeria, which he first visited in 1931. There he was deeply impressed by the sculptural presence of the women of the Kasbah, observed under the intense and nuanced light of Algiers. Rafi explored the influence of the Arab and Mediterranean worlds on Le Corbusier’s work.
Another historian, Stanislaus von Moos (1940–), writes in Le Corbusier: Elements of a Synthesis that “Le Corbusier’s journeys to South America (1929) and Algeria (from 1931 onward) transformed his plastic sensibility.”
In her studies, Danièle Pauly (1947–) emphasizes that “The drawings of Brazilian and Algerian women were not anecdotal episodes but part of an investigation into the human form.”
Jean-Louis Cohen (1949–2023), in Le Corbusier: Le Grand and other works, concludes that “Le Corbusier’s journeys through the Americas and Africa broadened his cultural horizon.”
On Le Corbusier’s relationship with Eileen Gray and Badovici at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, see https://onlybook.es/blog/eileen-gray-le-corbusier-y-badovici-en-roquebrune-cap-martin/
Returning to the influence of Wright’s work
Knowledge of Frank Lloyd Wright’s work in Brazil dates back to the 1920s. Architects such as Antônio Garcia Moya (1891–1949) and Flávio de Carvalho (1899–1973), among the first representatives of the Brazilian Modern Movement, were familiar with and admired his architecture, incorporating some of its principles into their own work. A decisive role in disseminating Wright’s ideas was played by the publication, in 1910, of the Wasmuth Portfolio, published in Berlin by Ernst Wasmuth under the title «Ausgeführte Bauten und Entwürfe von Frank Lloyd Wright«. Consisting of one hundred plates and a text volume, the publication enabled Wright’s architecture to achieve wide circulation throughout Europe and the Americas, eventually reaching Brazil as well.
On the Wasmuth Portfolio and the murders at Taliesin, see https://onlybook.es/blog/las-obras-de-frank-lloyd-wright-parte-5/
Much of the first edition of the Wasmuth Portfolio was lost in the tragic Taliesin fire of August 15, 1914, during which seven people were murdered (his partner Mamah Borthwick, her two children, and four others), and the building was severely damaged. As a result, only about 35 copies of the book survived.
The same publisher, Ernst Wasmuth, had issued in 1911 Ausgeführte Bauten von Frank Lloyd Wright, a volume containing photographic documentation of his works, printed in a larger edition than the Wasmuth Portfolio. It was republished in 1924.
During the 1920s, Wright’s architecture continued to spread throughout Europe through German publications and, especially, through the Dutch magazine Wendingen, which devoted several issues to his work between 1918 and 1932. Its editor-in-chief, Hendricus Theodorus Wijdeveld (1885–1987), was one of the principal promoters of Wright’s architecture in Europe.
At the Mackenzie School of Engineering in São Paulo, where architecture had been taught since 1917, American journals such as Architectural Record, Architectural Forum, and Pencil Points were received regularly.
Through these publications, the work of the architect and draftsman Hugh Ferriss (St. Louis, 1889 – New York, 1962) became known in Brazil. His vision of the modern city exerted a profound influence on a generation of Brazilian architects. Flávio de Carvalho (1899–1973) remarked, “Hugh Ferriss influenced my generation of architects more than anyone else.”
Between 1927 and 1928, Architectural Record published, in thirteen installments, Frank Lloyd Wright’s essays collected under the title “In the Cause of Architecture,” some of which had originally appeared between 1908 and 1914.
A small number of subscribers also received L’Esprit Nouveau, edited by Le Corbusier and Amédée Ozenfant (1886–1966), published between 1920 and 1925. Its articles helped introduce the ideas of the Modern Movement to Brazil during its formative years.
Two architects from São Paulo occupied a prominent place in the Brazilian architectural scene during those years: Antônio Garcia Moya (1891–1949) and Flávio de Carvalho (1899–1973).
Born and educated in Spain, Antônio Garcia Moya presented, in the architecture section of the 1922 Week of Modern Art in São Paulo, a series of projects that departed from traditional academic styles. His proposals incorporated influences from the European avant-garde and the Arts Décoratifs, reinterpreted through the so-called Marajoara style, inspired by the geometric motifs of the ceramics of the indigenous Marajó culture. (4)
Residence Project, 1928. Architect: Antônio Garcia Moya. Reproduced in Arte no Brasil. Abril Cultural, São Paulo, 1979
Flávio Resende de Carvalho (1899–1973) studied civil engineering at Durham University in Newcastle upon Tyne and completed his education with private studies in philosophy and psychology.
His design for the Government Palace of the State of São Paulo, submitted in 1927, is regarded as one of the first formally modern architectural proposals produced in Brazil. With this project, he initiated a series of competition entries developed between 1927 and 1931 that sparked intense controversy and brought modern architecture into the debate in the Brazilian press.
In his proposal for the First International Competition for the Columbus Lighthouse (1929), Flávio de Carvalho (1899–1973) incorporated elements characteristic of the European avant-garde.
In his analysis of the project, the Brazilian architect, architectural historian, and critic Luiz Carlos Daher (1941–2021) (5) identifies conceptual and formal references drawn from Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959), Antonio Sant’Elia (1888–1916), Russian Constructivism, Erich Mendelsohn (1887–1953), and Hans Poelzig (1869–1936), integrated with a decorative program inspired by Pre-Columbian art, in keeping with the competition brief… nothing more, nothing less!!!
Although it did not receive an award, the proposal attracted special attention from the jury, which devoted three color pages to it in the official competition publication, issued by the Pan American Union in 1931.
On The Works of Frank Lloyd Wright, the Princeton lectures, and the Walker House, see https://onlybook.es/blog/las-obras-de-frank-lloyd-wright-parte-12-conferencias-en-princeton-y-la-casa-walker/
Frank Lloyd Wright’s visit to Brazil in 1931 coincided with the International Competition for the Columbus Lighthouse, at a complex moment in his professional career. At the age of 64, he was still celebrated for his ideas and for the Prairie Houses, yet part of the younger generation of architects regarded him as a figure belonging to an earlier era (something that undoubtedly affected him). In retrospect, it is possible to understand Wright’s motivations for the astute decision to present, years later, his Mile High Building (The Illinois).
A characteristically Wrightian gesture, intended to demonstrate that he was not being surpassed by “so many European architects.”
Wright maintained a critical position toward the so-called Modern Movement. He expressed these ideas in the Kahn Lectures on Modern Architecture, delivered at Princeton University in 1930, and developed them further a few years later with the presentation of Broadacre City in 1935.
On Frank Lloyd Wright’s integrated design and the Price Tower, see https://onlybook.es/blog/el-diseno-integral-de-frank-lloyd-wright-3a-parte-mb/
Ocotillo Deser Camp
“…a fleet of sails in the desert”
In his search for a vision of humanity’s presence within the Arizona landscape and its desert conditions, Wright developed the Ocotillo Desert Camp in 1929. Its name derives from the ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens), a large shrub native to the region.
The camp originated from a commission by Alexander John Chandler (1865–1960) to design the San Marcos in the Desert Hotel near Chandler, Arizona. The hotel was to be built on a site of approximately 567 hectares. As a base of operations for the design and construction of the project, Wright designed and built a temporary camp in the desert, which he named Ocotillo Desert Camp.
The project was developed by the studio in a single day, and the camp was constructed in approximately six weeks. The complex consisted of a series of small pavilions and lightweight canvas-and-wood structures inspired by tent houses, adapted to the conditions of the desert. Wright resided at Ocotillo Desert Camp from January to May 1929. The onset of the intense summer heat, together with the challenges of the desert environment, including snakes and scorpions, prompted his return to Taliesin in Wisconsin.
In June 1929, the camp was destroyed by fire. A few months later, the collapse of the New York Stock Exchange in October of that year made the construction of the San Marcos in the Desert Hotel financially unfeasible, bringing the project to an end. Over time, the remains of the camp gradually disappeared, absorbed into the desert landscape.
As he had done at Taliesin, the cabins left the top of the hill open and were arranged around it, positioned at 30- and 60-degree angles that corresponded to the slopes of the surrounding mountains and the hillside on which they stood. This layout promoted the integration of the complex with the desert landscape while fostering the communal life of its occupants.
Note on the drawings: Since 2012, Frank Lloyd Wright’s original drawings from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives have been housed at the Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library at Columbia University, while the models and other three-dimensional objects have been transferred to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.
The buildings were constructed with low redwood walls and sloping white canvas roofs, designed to provide protection from the sun while harmonizing with the landscape. Wright described the complex as “a fleet of sails in the desert.”
The furnishings were deliberately austere: canvas chairs, camp cots, mats, and rugs similar to those used by the Navajo people. Wright also sought to give the project wide exposure through its publication in specialized architectural journals.
The camp incorporated passive bioclimatic design strategies. Cross-ventilation was achieved through openings located at the base of the walls, while hot air escaped through the upper portions of the roofs (the chimney effect). The canvas coverings also allowed slight air permeability, contributing to improved thermal comfort in the desert climate.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=muoVqVZ7RlM%3Ffeature%3Doembed
That same year, in the city of Phoenix, architect Albert Chase McArthur (1881–1951) inaugurated the Arizona Biltmore Hotel (1929), whose architecture incorporates molded concrete blocks (textile blocks) in its façades and other building elements, developed from the system devised by Frank Lloyd Wright for his California houses of the first half of the 1920s.
Although Wright served for several months as a consulting architect for the Arizona Biltmore Hotel, he was critical of its use of textile blocks, maintaining that they should serve a structural function rather than being limited to a decorative treatment of the façades.
He had developed the system for the San Marcos in the Desert Hotel project, for which he even built a scale plaster model at Ocotillo Desert Camp. The relief patterns of the blocks were inspired by the ribs of the saguaro cactus (Carnegiea gigantea), one of the symbols of the Arizona desert.
The hotel was designed as a three-story terraced structure and was intended to employ textile blocks and glass blocks as part of its construction system. The interior decoration was to incorporate elements of copper and glass.
Each suite was planned to include two bedrooms and two bathrooms. The tapestries were designed with geometric motifs corresponding to the textile blocks, reflecting the building’s architectural language.
The terrace roofs were intended to serve as gardens for the level above.
Natural lighting was to be provided through skylights penetrating the roof and illuminating the hotel’s central spaces.
On the Biltmore Hotel, the dispute over the textile blocks, and the TAA, see https://onlybook.es/blog/las-obras-de-frank-lloyd-wright-parte-7-el-taa/
Notes
1
Estudios del Hábitat, Vol. 17, No. 2, 2019. Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism, University of Buenos Aires.
Juan Sebastián Malecki, architect, Ph.D., and Assistant Researcher at CONICET. Professor at the Faculty of Architecture, Urbanism and Design of the National University of Córdoba and member of the Institute of Humanities. Director of the research project Córdoba Moderna: Architecture, Culture and the City (1936–1978).
Gonzalo Fuzs, architect and Ph.D. in Architectural Design from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. Professor at the Faculty of Architecture, Urbanism and Design of the National University of Córdoba and member of the research project Córdoba Moderna: Architecture, Culture and the City (1936–1978).
2
Carlos Lange (1913–1967) was born in Casilda, Santa Fe Province. He studied architecture at the School of Architecture of the National University of the Littoral in Rosario, where he met Luis Rébora and Rodolfo Wieland. In 1939, he was awarded the Silver Medal of the Mitre Prize.
He graduated in 1940 and moved to Córdoba, where he entered into professional practice with Rodolfo Wieland. In 1946, he formed a new partnership with Luis Rébora. Between 1946 and 1947, he served as Director of the Provincial Department of Architecture of Córdoba.
In 1956, he was appointed Acting Professor of Architectural Composition III at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the National University of Córdoba.
3
Claudia Felipe Torres, art historian and researcher at the Department of University Cultural Heritage of the University of Havana, is the author of the article “Latin America at the Antipodes: Le Corbusier between Airplanes and Mulatto Women” (Revista Universidad de La Habana, No. 280, 2015). The article incorporates excerpts from a research project funded by the Le Corbusier Foundation through its 2012 Young Researchers Grant.
4
VITRUVIUS. Arquitextos, November 2001. Authors: architect Nina Nedelykov (1960–), lecturer at the symposium “Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect”, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1994; and architect Pedro Moreira (1965–), Consultant for International Projects at the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation (2001). Both are partners at the architectural practice Nedelykov Moreira Architekten, Berlin.
5
Luiz Carlos Daher (1941–2021) was a Brazilian architect, architectural historian, and critic, a professor at the University of Brasília (UnB), and one of the leading scholars of Brazilian modern architecture. His research focused primarily on the architecture of the early decades of the twentieth century and on figures such as Flávio de Carvalho, Gregori Warchavchik, and Lúcio Costa.
continuing with the Robie House https://onlybook.es/blog/las-obras-de-frank-lloyd-wright-parte-13-la-casa-robie/
See all about Frank Lloyd Wright. Some of the articles published, Parts 1 to 8 https://onlybook.es/blog/ver-todo-sobre-wright-alguno-de-los-articulos-publicados-desde-el-1-al-8/
Our blog has received more than 1,700,000 views https://onlybook.es/blog/nuestro-blog-ha-superado-el-millon-de-lecturas/
Arq. Hugo Alberto Kliczkowski Juritz
Onlybook.es/blog
Hugoklico7.blogspot.com
Salvemos al Parador Ariston de su ruina
Firma en el siguiente link https://chng.it/PsfMJ6xtK6 y difúndelo. GRACIAS
Diario Clarin https://onlybook.es/blog/el-parador-ariston-https://onlybook.es/blog/el-parador-ariston-
Post navigation
Entrada anteriorLas obras de Frank Lloyd Wright, conferencias en Princeton, la Casa Walker. parte 12Entrada siguienteLas obras de Frank Lloyd Wright, parte 14. La Casa Robie. (mbgb)
Post navigation
Entrada anteriorVer todo sobre Frank Lloyd Wright. Alguno de los articulos publicados, desde el 1 al 8.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario