Design in Latin America: "Imaginatively inventing what remains to be done"

Jose Bernardi

Assistant Professor of Design at the College of Architecture and Environmental Design, at Arizona State University.

In Latin America, all pre-existing cultural structures, languages and artistic expressions were dismantled by European powers. This cultural phenomena generated a series of processes of implantation and adaptation, and the "search for a certain voice" in Latin American design. As the Colombian critic Silvia Arango wrote, Latin American design consciousness lies "...in imaginatively inventing what remains to be done."

"Latin America" implies a cultural, as well as a political, entity which in practice hardly exists. The term "Latin America" was coined in the Nineteenth Century, and used first by French diplomats as an abstraction. Intending to oppose the emerging northern Anglo-American power base, the term resulted in two significant manifestations: on the one hand, it realized the "continentality" of an otherwise loose association of nations south of the Rio Grande; on the other hand, it manifested differences among these countries while distinctly interpreting the past and envisioning the future. This presentation will focus on specific examples in Mexico and Argentina, within a conceptual framework which reflects particular attitudes toward three points: 1) realizing the continuous deterioration of the environment and, consequently, the quality of life; 2) consciously understanding the fragility and ubiquitous nature of the traditional historical layers within each city and the socio-political implications of taking them into consideration; and 3) exploring a repertoire of typologies and archetypes which clearly recognize the ‘historicity of all the city.’

A Mexican case: Legorreta’s work in context.

In Mexico, artistic tendencies generally were generated from elements outside the discipline, defined mostly by social concerns and attitudes such as "indigenism." Artistic ideas and movements were brought from intellectuals who were educated in or visited Europe and wanted to share their experience in their own locale. Consequently, conceptual origin was from outside, but the change of context and scale gave their production a new singularity. The important gesture and contribution were in the particularities of the adoption. For this reason reference to location, either the geography, the context or socio-political circumstances, is almost a constant in Mexican design production. This embodies a complex twofold attitude of rejection and appropriation of outside influences and creates a mestizo culture or, more recently, a hybrid and syncretic production. The search for a national style was the first attempt to examine archaeology, urban and architectural patrimony, and systematically preserve local culture. Though often reduced to formal aspects, it generated a significant body of theoretical work that preserved a sense of identity in a culturally and historically diverse country.

The search for Mexicanidad, or an appropriate style of designing and building, originated with the archaeological uncovering of monuments during the late Nineteenth Century. It reached its peak during the Mexican Revolution (1910-1921). José Vazconcelos, Minister of Education during the first stage of the revolution, upheld regional culture in his book The Cosmic Race".1 This work challenged the Eurocentric vision of humanity and culture. He also promoted the muralist phenomena. As a result, the masses easily identified with the murals of Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Jose Orozco, and Roberto Montenegro who idealized peasants, Indians, and pre-Hispanic myths. The muralists were ideologically single-minded, presenting a vision of good and bad, and creating works which became objects of veneration. The story of the mythical origin of pre-Hispanic races was portrayed in gigantic murals. Their vision of the revolution quickly became part of the official orthodoxy. However, this simplistic vision of Mexican idyllic past oversimplified Mexico’s complex situation that was reflected in the conflict and interaction of several ethnic traditions and different temporal moments.

When, in the 1940’s, Carlos Obregon Santacilia rejected a historicist approach towards design and pointed out the values of indigenous architecture, he was continuing a long tradition which synthesized landscape, natural materials, the value of color, music, and crafts.2 This synthesis has been the defining characteristic of Mexican design production, and yet, outside Mexico, most publications emphasize only formal aspects that have been detached from their cultural context. The exuberant use of color has been related to themes of fantasy and magic. This has generated interpretations that narrowly confine most of design production in Mexico and other Latin American countries to the maticideas who were exotic, fantastic, or magical. The term fantastic was originally used to describe a genre of literature by the Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier. By extension, this term later served to define much of the work of Salmona, Barragan, and Legorreta.3

The Mexican example illustrates how particular interventions, derived from climate, type and local materials, search to convey a sense of "Mexicanidad," of "deliberate technological primitivism." This paper will discuss the work of Ricardo Legorreta, who has become the champion of Mexican independence in architecture. In doing so, he has established a vocabulary that is at the verge of becoming a cliché: bold, strong colors, and the interplay of abstract planes which refers both to a Modernist tradition, and the evocation of ritualistic approaches towards life. The project in consideration is located in Monterey. It is intended to bring vitality to the city center and inter-relates poetic elements such as magic, serenity, enchantment, and mystery. In this intervention, type is the instrument that selects, and generates new variations.

The Museum of Contemporary Art, in Monterey, was completed in 1992. It is located at the end of an area known as the 'macro-plaza'—an open space completed during the presidential period of Jose Lopez Portillo (1976–1982). The vast scale of the open space has broken the traditional pattern of the Spanish grid, and radically changed the scale of the cathedral. The architect has described the museum design as "inspired by the traditional Mexican house plan: central courtyard edged by an arcade"4 Diane Ghirardo, in her provocative book Architecture after Modernism has criticized the project in these terms:

The connection to the courtyard house frankly disappears because of the enormous scale of the project, on the other hand, highly traditional enfolds of white galleries form a virginal backdrop for uninterrupted aesthetic contemplation in the tradition of the exaltation of art and its separation from the problems of daily life. Among the things the project is designed to forget are the museum’s construction in a much contested urban renewal zone, the devastation of the historic core of Monterey with the backing of local corporate interests, and the domination of the institution by one wealthy family set up as cultural arbiter.5

It is interesting to note that, among the extensive list of projects discussed in her book, only Legorreta’s clients are incorporated as part of the critique. I mention this fact because the question of patron age and the links between power and architecture are issues not always pursued by critics, or at best, pursued in a very selective way. Most of the time they are used to reinforce a stereotype. The fact is that this family has invested both in suburban context and the center of the city. Because of its location and presence, the museum is reinvigorating the gutted historic area of Monterey. Certainly, the project incorporates the patio type in its design, but it is utilized more to re-elaborate the concept than to illustrate the pure use of a specific precedent. Although the plan of the building might suggest a sequence of "virginal" and "highly traditional white galleries", the museum itself is more than the extrusion of the plan. Anyone who actually visits the building can experience more than "an uninterrupted aesthetic contemplation". The sequencing of space is carefully articulated. The esplanade, which contains Juan Siriano’s gigantic dove, pays tribute and makes reference to the sculpture by Barragan. At the same time, this space plays a role in the urban fabric. With a background of interlocking modernist planes and a sequence of windows, it also echoes the atrium of the cathedral.

The visitor enters to a transitional space that is marked by a lowered ceiling typical of religious buildings in Mexico. The first stage of this path opens onto a "patio" which contains a gigantic pool surrounded by massive pillars. Here it is clear that Legorreta assimilates several influences and references. In this case, he carefully brings to mind the seminal pre-Hispanic Patio at the palace in Teotihuacan, or the impressive courtyard of Uxmal. He also links Mexican patterns of life to Spanish-Moorish precedents, particularly, the fountain in the garden at the Royal Alcázar of Seville. The echoes of Mathias Goeritz, and Villagran, the Mexican masters of modernist design, are also present. But Legorreta adds the ingredient of emotion and a "certain amount of improvisation" and "uncertainty of memory."

The facade is considered from the necessity of providing a face to the urban context and for light and air for the interior. Here is the connection with the patio type house. Historically, houses consisted in a pure interior. Each space was defined not for the use but for its grade of privacy. To enter into a Mexican house is to enter into a sequence toward "interiority"; into a state of being. Understanding the spaces is not fixed, or determined by principles or rules of composition, but rather, by the people who move and participate in the events which take place. Consequently, it is in the connecting sequence, the corridors, and the in-between spaces, where the potential of light and experience are explored. Walls offer select partials views of an enormous landscape that surrounds the city, a landscape being threatened by a deteriorating environment. By creating these connections, the walls are seen as constructs by means of which communication occur, they become instruments of media as well as mediation.

Legorreta acknowledges Barragan’s influence upon his work. Most of Barragan’s production is small and domestic, and rather inaccessible to the public. He is recognized mostly by the poignant photographs of Salas Portugal. These photographs were carefully crafted and presented a particular aspect of Barragan’s work. In an issue of Design Book Review devoted to Latin American design, John Loomis has pointed out "the photographs take on a life of their own," and Massimo Vignelli, in the book Photographs of the Architecture of Luis Barragán, says, "Invisiting Barragan’s architecture, one tends to reconstruct Sala’s images in order to recapture the icon of the sublime." 6 I’d like to argue that, in Legorreta case, the very emotional touch that affects our senses verges on the point of cliché.

Legorreta also has acknowledged the influence of the painter and designer Jesus Reyes Ferreira, with his synthesis of furniture, textiles, tapestry, leather, and craft. Reyes also restored many altars, and knew the value of rituals and icons in society. Reyes knew that the nucleus of Mexican society has been "collective piety and abundance of rituals and fiestas".7 He also understood the role of decorative elements both in places and in human sensibilities, thus going beyond the visceral repudiation of decorative elements, so common in Modernist orthodoxy. Legorreta combines these devises, yet also relies more upon a rhetoric of the colors than upon an argument of physical movement and its relationship to objects in space. As for the construction quality of the building, the lack of detail in a country renowned by its craft and fine detailing skills is obvious.

Historically, the issue of identity has referred to a population. Popular Mexican architecture was defined by the vernacular characteristic of each locale. The refined Baroque produced in the Valley of Mexico is different from those of other areas. The work produced by Legorreta, whether in San Antonio, Texas, Los Angeles or San Luis Potosi, in Mexico, hardly show any adaptation to the cultural context of those cities. Rather, it is a very effective use of an accepted vocabulary.

Western culture had used magic, myth, and fantasy, as an added element. For the Mexican culture, these are intrinsic; they are basic components. As Charles Mere whether has indicated, "the marvelous is not outside the real, but part of it, it allows for a transformation of the real. It is not an irrational element, but part of a rational project charged with connotations of liberation".8 In this regard, the aesthetic pleasure that Legorreta proposes is pure entertainment, without challenge. The magical implications have been converted to a commodity and the critical component has became a trademark, a "for export product." This intervention shows that, the myth of a unified national architecture based on memory, a particularized language and standardized regional traditions is well alive and can be commercially successful. Legorreta’s work is traditional not because of its formal vocabulary, but because of its effectiveness. It is measured for its compliance with or its deviation from what a cannon of Mexican architecture should be. The identification of a correct attitude towards tradition in order to create an authentic national architecture has oversimplified and reduced a complex cultural issue. Thus, has created an almost uniform repertoire of commonplaces. This is not just the case of Legorreta’s architecture, but rather, it is an unresolved question posed to all interested in regional design.

The case of Córdoba, Argentina

Argentina presents a different relationship with the past and tradition. In Argentina, with a population resulting vastly from immigration, origin does not reside in pre-Hispanic races, but in the city port itself. One element that characterizes architecture and design in Argentina is its discontinuity, principally in the urban fabric. The prosperity of the upper classes resulted from trade, and Paris was the highest standard of elegance. Clemenceau’s comment "Buenos Aires is a beautiful European city" encapsulates the Argentine perception of a lack of roots, and contributed to the myth of a country on the wrong continent. If Mexican malaise was always expressed by its immediacy with its giant neighbor, the United States, Argentina’s problems were resolved by looking to Europe.

From the Beaux Art perspective, which dominated most of the end of the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century Argentina, each building, each object is a singular, unique piece of art. So the context was reduced to a reference which can only gain prestige by the presence of the monument, as being a part of axial views, leaving the rest as a disjointed collage.

In its first stage, modernism was generated by intellectuals returning from Europe, trying to make their experiences in Europe relevant for their own country. The impact of the arrival of immigrants, and urbanization were the most important phenomena of the time. Argentina also manifested some of the earliest critiques of modernist stylization. The Austral Group, in its manifesto Will and Action, of 1939, declared: "present architecture is in a critical moment and lacking the spirit of the initiators." The architect—using only the epidermal issues of modern architecture—is again a "new academicist." This is the refuge for the mediocre, and is given place to a "modern style."9 The group’s manifesto expresses the need of intellectuals to define contemporary themes in local terms. In philosophy, Ortega y Gasset, in his El Tema de Nuestro Tiempo (1923) "The theme of our time," proposes to deduce the universal from the circumstantial, to start any speculation from individual human situations giving emphasis to the personal.10

Marina Waisman has pointed out the importance given to the context and "the creation of urban places, the use of intermediate technology, and the emphasis on a tactile rather than visual" as elements which characterize the situation in Argentina.11
The Argentinean case will be presented through a project intended to revitalize select areas within the city of Córdoba. Implemented by Miguel Angel Roca in 1978-1980, it is ongoing through subsequent administrations.

Córdoba was founded in 1573, and its university, one of the oldest of the Western Hemisphere, was founded in the early 1600’s. The city was shaped by a series of interventions throughout its long history. In1978, when Roca received his appointment as Secretary of Public Works, Cordoba’s urban identity was the reflection of a history of misuse of the city’s cultural and urban heritage. The plan involves a two-fold operation. First, to rehabilitate typologies that are the evidence of the historical evolution of the city combined with the recuperation of the Suquia River as the green area that links several areas of the urban fabric. Second, to promote a policy which established the city center as a symbolic multi-functional core while maintaining a complementary relationship with the urban periphery. Instead of a single, unified intervention, the result emphasizes the clash of different languages and ever-changing uses and functions in time. Roca and his team intended to generate "defined urban spaces which are localised and individualized". This is an exercise on syncretism, a not always very successful, yet a strong search for a dialogue among the different components of the city. 12

The intervention in the center of the city was done with the goal of reinforcing the character that the main square and the foundational area had at the turn of the century: the patio for all the city, the green interior, the gathering place. The proposal has simple elements: trees with characteristic color and structure, a paving floor creating the reflection of relevant buildings, and suggesting gates as a threshold for each individual room. The initial scheme of the foundation was made up of the orthogonal grid and the landmarks in the city (cathedral, cabildo, important colonial monasteries, and houses). With time, these urban elements became a disjointed set of buildings and squares—dis-articulated in a mix by the rapid growth and the over-importance given to the car.

The specific proposal for the area linked these landmarks. The old plaza was re-established as the foundational place, with all its social and political implications. By giving a new use to an old alleyway between the cabildo, previously closed to the public, the intervention recovers the lateral facades of both buildings, but also recuperates a passage unique in the city for its colonial character, and the pedestrian has the view of the tower, and magnificent railing of Saint Catherine Church. This area is defined as a room by using a covered gate, with trees and stone seats. The other limit is an arch. This block opens to a second room, with a neo-classical building of the House of Representatives. Here the device consists of the use of the lines of the building in the street. A colonnade is the next threshold, a commercial area with eclectic buildings. Here, a metallic pergola is the unifying device that identifies the intervention. There, climbing plants shade the visitors from the sun.

Departing from the rails of Saint Catherine, in the opposite direction from the arch, are the Jesuit area and the University. This block also houses several institutions of the city. Here Roca used a Spanish device, the Alameda. In this block the line of poplar trees and its bed allow students to convert the street into perfect room the exchange of news and books.

Cultural centers, pedestrian malls and the ambitious project of recuperating the river had been expanded since Roca’s departure and continues up to this day. This intervention emphasizes the importance and historicity of all the city and generated awareness in the population about the importance of their own participation and the richness of their own patrimony.

Designing in this manner, is not so directly concerned with the rules of a discipline, but rather, with the possibilities of public discourse, social action and democratic participation. Through the invention of the quotidian, the transitory and localized is explored. Design becomes an active part of the ideas present in society, making its own contribution The role of the design team does not come from their form-making capacities, but rather, from their ability to facilitate possibilities.

Intervention in specific contexts.

In the search for national identity, principally in the 40’s until the 70’s, Latin American discourse was dominated by ideology, and heavily influenced by social views and political agendas. In the 80’s,with the transitional process toward democratization in most of Latin American countries, there has been a shift from "resistance" to articulation of seemingly contradictory points of view and hybridization. 13
For many years the debate about identity, and consequently, how to intervene, has been defined by ethnic and class identity or hermetic rules of form. Today, the debate has incorporated the all-encompassing term "hybrid," a phenomena that blurs the boundaries between cultured and popular design. This syncretism of Latin American urban culture refuses to comply with the expectations and assumptions of just being "marvelous, fantastic, or exotic." On the other hand, the phenomena of diversity has become a commercialized form of rhetoric that maintains a status-quo without reaching those in need of a better quality of life. The important components are situation and specificity, that is to say, imagination should become localized, reflective, and concrete. 14

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Endnotes.

1 Vasconcelos, Jose, The cosmic race: La raza cosmica / a bilingual edition with and introduction and notes by Didier T. Jaen. Los angeles: Centro de Publicaciones, Dept. of Chicano Studies, California State University, Los Angeles, 1979. The first edition of this book was published in Spanish in 1945.

2 For a discussion on Santillana’s evolution towards this position, see Gutierrez, Ramón Arquitectura y Urbanismo en Iberoamerica. Ediciones Catedra S. A., 1983, p.553,585

3 Carpentier first advanced his concept of the marvelous-real on El reino de este mundo (The Kingdom of this world), trans. Harriet de Onis,New York: the Noon Day Press, 1989. The ideas were further elaborated in Tientos y diferencias, ensayos, Mexico, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 1964.

4 Ricardo Legorreta, architect. Edited with introduction by John V. Mutlow. New York: Rizzoli, 1997

5 Ghirardo, Diane, Architecture after modernism, New York, N.Y.: Thames and Hudson, 1996, p. 79

6 John Loomis, The Barragán Phenomena. Design Book Review, Other Americas. Spring/Summer 1994, p.60-3

7 Paz, Octavio, op.cit. p.88

8 Merewether, Charles, "The Phantasm of origins: New York and the art of Latin America". Art and Text 30, 1989, pp. 55-6

9 The Austral Group was composed by Antonio Bonet, Jorge Ferrera Hardoy, Juan Kurchan, Alberto Le Pera, Ungar and Hilario Zalba. The group’s manifesto was published as an addendum to the magazine Nuestra Arquitectura. It was very well received by Le Corbusier, who sent a letter from Vézeley in 1939 congratulating the group.

10 Ortega y Gasset, Jose, The Modern Theme. translated from the Spanishby James Cleugh. New York , Harper, 1961

11 Waisman, Marina, An Architectural Theory for Latin America, DesignBook Review p.29, op.cit.

12 See Taylor, Brian Brace, Miguel Angel Roca, London: Mimar Publications, 1992

13 See Mosquera, Gerardo, Beyond the Fantastic, The MIT Press, 1996. I have drawn ideas from most of the essays of this provocative book.

14 See Richard, Nelly, Postmodern Decentrednesses and Cultural Periphery, p.268, quoted by Gerardo Mosquera, op.cit.

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