Latin American architecture

Introduction

      history of architecture in Mesoamerica, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean beginning after contact with the Spanish and Portuguese in 1492 and 1500, respectively, and continuing to the present.

      For centuries before about 1500, indigenous American peoples had civilizations with unique architectural traditions; for these traditions, which continue to the present day, see Native American arts. After about 1500, these traditions often became intertwined with those of Europe and North America; for these European and North American histories, see Western architecture. The technical and theoretical aspects of architecture are treated elsewhere; see architecture. For a thorough treatment of the often-related visual art traditions of Latin America after about 1500, see Latin American art.

The colonial period, c. 1492–1810

The conquest of Amerindian cities and the first American building

      When Christopher Columbus returned to Spain in 1493 and brought news of his “discovery” of the island of “La Española” (or Hispaniola), the present-day Dominican Republic, the “New World” was born. Over the course of the next 30 years, Spanish explorers encountered several Native American cities as large and as complex as any in Europe.

      Before returning, Columbus ordered his men to build a fort—the first European building constructed in the Americas. The Santa Maria, being no longer seaworthy, was turned upside down on the beach, dragged up the coast, and recycled into a fort housing the first Spanish settlers.

      Until England's conquest of Barbados in 1625, Spain, together with Portugal in the south, controlled all of the New World. Though political governance was absolute and centralized in Madrid—via Sevilla—the cultural landscape of the New World remained decentralized and open to influence from Flanders, Germany, and Italy. In some cases Jesuit, Dominican, and Franciscan priests and architects imported knowledge from Europe to the Americas even before it reached Spain. Architectural and artistic production in the New World emerged as a creative product of this new cultural and geographical freedom.

      In 1524 the Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés (Cortés, Hernán, marqués del Valle de Oaxaca) described Tenochtitlán (pre-Columbian civilizations), present-day Mexico City, in a letter to Charles V, the king of Spain:

There are in the city many large and beautiful houses.…All these houses have very large and very good rooms and also very pleasant gardens of various sorts of flowers both on the upper and lower floors. These people live almost like those in Spain and in as much harmony and order as there, and considering that they are barbarous and so far from the knowledge of God and cut off from all civilized nations, it is truly remarkable to see what they have achieved in all things.

The first Spanish viceroyalties and their capitals

      Spain initially organized its management and governance of the New World according to viceroyalties—geographical regions administered by a viceroy, a direct representative of the Spanish crown vested with executive, legislative, judicial, military, and ecclesiastical power.

      The Viceroyalty of New Spain (New Spain, Viceroyalty of), established in 1535, included what are now Mexico, Central America, Florida, and the southwestern United States. The Viceroyalty of Peru (Peru, Viceroyalty of), established in 1543, included territories from present-day Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, and Panama.

      In New Spain the ancient Aztec city of Tenochtitlán was systematically rebuilt as Mexico City and designated the capital of the viceroyalty. This transformation established Mexico City as a continuing locus of power for the Viceroyalty of New Spain.

       Cuzco, the ancient capital of the Inca empire, and Lima, a new city founded by the Spanish in 1535, functioned as the two great cities of colonial Peru, and governance shifted between them. Cuzco's urban structure featured streets, doors, and walls that utilized existing Inca masonry techniques; the new structures adapted and reused existing earthquake-resistant stone foundations. The original layout of the Inca city was also preserved. In 1553 the conquistador Pedro de Cieza de León stated: “At Cuzco the buildings commence on the sides of a high hill and extend over a wide plain. The city has long wide streets and very large squares. For Cuzco, with regard to the Inca Empire, was another Rome and the one city may be well compared to the other.” The cathedral of Cuzco (mid-16th to mid-17th century), by Francisco Becerra, is one of the few buildings that survived the strong earthquake of 1650. Its rectilinear plan, with three naves of equal height, is Renaissance in its spatial characteristics, but the stone reinforcements in the vaults are similar to those of late Gothic Spanish churches. The austere character of the almost fortresslike walls of the exterior is reinforced by symmetrical bell towers on the corners and an elaborately articulated entrance portal.

The new urban strategy: Checkerboard plans and the Laws of the Indies

      In 1532 the founding ceremony of “La Puebla de los Angeles” (now Puebla, Mex.) was held on a desolate spot between the ancient cities of Tlaxcala and Cholula. It was the first new city in Spanish America to apply a regular orthogonal grid system, an urban design model that became the norm for all the Americas. Origins of this grid-based urban plan had previously been found in varied sources dating back to the colonies of the Greek empire and then in Renaissance treaties. Such sources may have been relevant, but it is also important to understand that the orthogonal grid was used in pre-Columbian America long before these sources were known. For example, the ancient city of Cholula is a pre-Columbian grid city that Cortés called “the most beautiful city of all I have seen outside of Spain.” (It remains, along with Cuzco, the oldest city of the Western Hemisphere to be continuously inhabited—perhaps for as long as 8,000 years.)

      By the end of the 16th century, many of the major cities now existing in Latin America had been established. Spanish and Portuguese settlers created and developed Amerindian cities according to the preestablished Renaissance grid system. Generally speaking, these cities shared a grid plan featuring large, open squares defined by a cathedral and other institutional buildings. By contrast, architects and planners in European cities were often limited by the existing medieval urban fabric in the application of this model.

      The application of this grid system in Latin America was eventually enforced by the Laws of the Indies (Indies, Laws of the), a series of guidelines formulated by Spain for the planning and development (urban planning) of all new American cities as well as for the adaptation of the old Amerindian capitals. These laws promoted the ideal of the pure geometry of the Renaissance city. This strategy was reinforced by the architecture of cathedrals that adapted prevailing innovations by European Renaissance and Mannerist architects (see below) to the vernacular and local conditions found in the New World.

      The founding of new towns and the construction of large monasteries in Mexico provided an opportunity for enlightened European settlers to realize some of the utopian ideals of Renaissance planning. Antonio de Mendoza (Mendoza, Antonio de), the first viceroy of New Spain, oversaw the creation of mission establishments. Representing different religious orders, these missions were inspired by the theories of Europeans such as Leon Battista Alberti (Alberti, Leon Battista), Erasmus (Erasmus, Desiderius), and Sir Thomas More (More, Sir Thomas). The plan usually included a single nave church, a convent around a patio, a large walled atrium or churchyard with an open-air chapel for outdoor masses, and small corner chapels called posas. By 1590 more than 300 churches had been built in Mexico alone.

Renaissance and Mannerist architecture in the New World

      By the middle of the 16th century, the influence of Italian architect Donato Bramante (Bramante, Donato)'s High Renaissance Classicism (Western architecture) and the incipient Mannerism (Western architecture) of architects such as Giulio Romano had become evident in the architecture of the New World. The transmission of this influence from Spain was catalyzed by the publication in 1552 in Toledo of the first Spanish translation of the treatises of the Italian Mannerist architect Sebastiano Serlio (Serlio, Sebastiano).

      As evidenced by their extensive use of these treatises, local architects in the New World were undoubtedly aware of developments in European architecture. The ability of these New World architects to combine elements from Italian, Flemish, German, and Spanish sources with the local craft traditions and materials would result in an architecture that was unique to the Americas. It is estimated that 15,000 churches were built in Latin America between 1650 and 1800. Works inspired by the doorway designs of Italian architect Giacomo da Vignola (Vignola, Giacomo da) or the forms of Andrea Palladio (Palladio, Andrea), Michelangelo, Alberti, Bramante, and, in particular, Serlio, appeared from Mexico to Argentina from the 16th to the 18th century.

      The influence of Italian Mannerism is evident in the facade of the cathedral of Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), completed in 1541 and probably built by the first bishop of Santo Domingo, Alessandro Geraldini. The cathedral's entrance is framed by two barrel vaults that are distorted to exaggerate perspective—a literal translation of Serlio's two-dimensional perspective engraving into three dimensions. The Cathedral of San Francisco in Quito (Ecuador) was founded in 1535 by the Flemish Franciscan priest Jodoco Ricke de Marselaer and demonstrates Serlio's influence through a series of banded columns applied to the facade, while the entrance plaza includes a circular double stair that replicates one planned by Bramante for the Vatican and published in Serlio's treatises. The circular cloister of the College of Saint Thomas in Lima, built beginning in 1783, makes reference to both the Cloister of St. Peter (1502) in Montorio, Rome, by Bramante, and the Palace of Charles V (1527–68), by Pedro Machuca, which is adjacent to the Alhambra in Granada. Architects from Cuzco to Lima, and eventually from Bogotá (Colombia) to Coro (Venezuela), copied the Mannerist Classicism evident in Serlio's portals.

Military architecture

      By the 17th century the principal ports of the Caribbean were protected by military fortifications, which became necessary because of widespread piracy and the colonial ambitions of the Netherlands, England, and France for the territories controlled by Spain and Portugal. These fortifications can be classified into five categories: (1) fortifications similar to medieval models; (2) forts based on Renaissance geometric models; (3) forts designed within the urban grid; (4) forts that were part of a larger defense system; and (5) forts based on the principles of the French military engineer Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban (Vauban, Sébastien Le Prestre de), which were translated into Spanish by Ignacio de Sala in 1743.

  Philip II, the king of Spain, commissioned Tiburcio Spanoqui and Bautista Antonelli to design and execute a defensive system that would protect the Spanish fleet. This entailed the building of forts from the coast of Florida to the Strait of Magellan. The first forts would be built in Puerto Rico, Cuba, Veracruz, and Ullua (Mexico), Portobelo (Panama), Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), Panama, Cartagena (Colombia), and the salt mines of Araya (Venezuela). These projects would be continued by Antonelli's son Giovanni Bautista Antonelli and his nephew Cristobál de Roda.

The Baroque in the New World

      In addition to the influence of the Renaissance and Mannerism, the architecture of Latin American churches incorporated elements of European Baroque (Western architecture) design. This style is characterized by the transformation of Renaissance rectilinear spaces that were clearly defined and modulated toward more-complex curvilinear geometries based on the circle, oval, or spiral. These Baroque elements were primarily limited to planar decorative treatments on facades or interiors. This influence emerged in numerous buildings throughout Latin America.

      The salomónica, or twisted column, revived by the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Bernini, Gian Lorenzo) for the Baroque baldachin at St. Peter's (Saint Peter's Basilica) in Rome, was first used in Mexico on an altar ensemble designed by the Spanish artist Juan Martínez Montañés (Montañés, Juan Martínez). It was installed in the new cathedral of Puebla in 1646. The use of the twisted column became emblematic of Baroque facades and altarpieces of 17th-century Mexican churches. For example, the cathedral of Puebla's interior is composed of a clear Renaissance order combined with the exposed rib vaults typical of the late Spanish Gothic (Western architecture).

 The cathedral of Cuzco, built in the mid-1650s, includes a complex and ornate portal applied to an austere surface flanked by two bell towers. The project, which was attributed to Juan Bautista Egidiano, a Flemish Jesuit active in Cuzco from 1642 to 1676, created a typology that was the origin of what was later designated the Cuzco style. This style is defined by the placement of twin bell towers on an austere square base that frames the elaborately articulated central portal and by the interior space being organized by three rectilinear naves, with elaborate Baroque decoration only on the altarpiece. The Cuzco style was reproduced from Lima to Sucre (Bolivia); the late 17th-century churches of San Sebastián, San Pedro, and Belen in Cuzco, all by the indigenous architects Manuel de Sahuaraura and Juan Tomás Tuyru Tupac, remain sophisticated examples. In this case, it is important to note that, although the architects were indigenous, their artistic character was European.

      The Chapel of Pocito in Guadalupe (Mexico), designed by Francisco Guerrero y Torres in the late 18th century, is one of the most significant examples of Baroque-influenced architecture in Spanish America. While this influence in Mexico and Peru remained limited to planar decorative treatments, Pocito instead presents a complex interweaving of Baroque spaces much like the work of Italian architect Francesco Borromini (Borromini, Francesco). This chapel and the Church of Santa Teresa of Cochabamba, an unfinished project begun in 1753 in Bolivia, present rare examples of Baroque spaces built in colonial Spain.

Seventeenth- and 18th-century architecture in Ecuador, Colombia, and Cuba

 In addition to importing formal and decorative aspects of European architecture, the ecclesiastical architecture of the New World also borrowed European construction methods, specifically adopting a phased approach to building that often spanned decades or even centuries. Construction on the Church of La Compañia in Quito, for example, began in 1605, although its facade was not completed until 1765. Conceived by the German Jesuit Leonhard Deubler and finished by the Italian architect Venancio Gandolfi, La Compañia's facade borrowed elements of contemporaneous southern Italian Baroque facades, as evidenced by the salomónica columns flanking the entrance, which make reference to Bernini's baldachin in St. Peter's. The interior shows a decorative exuberance in the elaborate carving of the altars, pulpits, and chapels that is typical of the Quito school.

      In Bogotá the Church of San Ignacio (early to mid-1600s), by the Tuscan Jesuit Juan Bautista Coluccini, exemplifies the Jesuit temple type that served as a model throughout the Americas, incorporating a mix of Renaissance and Mannerist elements. The facade recalls Alberti's San Andrea (c. 1470) and San Sebastiano (1460–70) in Mantua. The Mannerist elements taken from Serlio and others that were prevalent in Latin American architecture—where columns, friezes, arches, bases, and other elements once used to convey a sense of gravity were transformed into decorative elements—reflect both modernization and the continuation of the Renaissance.

      The Chapel of Rosario (c. 1680–90) in Tunja (Colombia) reflects the ornamental intensity common to 17th-century Latin American architecture. As with the Chapel of Rosario (1650–90) in Puebla, begun by the priest Juan de Cuenca and completed by the priest Diego de Gorospe, all the surfaces of the Tunja Rosario's interior are covered by decorative reliefs. In both chapels the space itself is not complex, yet the perception of these highly articulated surfaces creates a unique sensation that overwhelms the original space, collapsing the floors, walls, and ceilings into a single tapestry-like surface.

 In the Caribbean the Cathedral of Havana (1748–77)—the old church of St. Ignatius that was converted into a parish church by Pedro Agustín Morell de Santa Cruz, expanded by S.J. Echevarría, and then transformed by the first bishop, José de Tres-Palacios—is a strong example of Baroque architecture. Three columns that are turned outward from the centre give the facade structure, creating concave and convex rhythms reminiscent of the work of Borromini. The facade is centred on an intimate square that is regarded as one of the best-proportioned urban spaces in the Americas.

Eighteenth-century architecture in Mexico

 The Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico in Mexico City, begun in the 16th century by Claudio de Arciniega, is Classical in its layout, with extraordinary fragments of an exuberant Baroque decoration applied on the surface. The cathedral's Altar of the Kings (1718–37), by Jerónimo de Balbás, began a formal type that would be applied until the end of the 18th century in Mexico. The altar, which covers the entire end of the central nave of the cathedral, is a vertical composition that is framed by the use of foreshortened columns called estipes and a profuse use of small-scale decorative elements that create an unreal appearance meant to elicit a trancelike effect that would enable a worshipper to imagine the glory of heaven. This type of “Ultrabaroque (Latin American art)” excess was then called Churrigueresco (Churrigueresque), although the Spanish architect José Benito Churriguera (see Churriguera family) had little to do with this very Mexican manner of surface treatment. The Ultrabaroque decorative style was for the most part a surface treatment that did not propose a new spatial organization but rather worked best when the spaces were straightforward. This Baroque sensibility had two fields of intervention: the public entrance facade and the altar at the end of this axis.

      By the second half of the 17th century and into the 18th century, the interior decoration of churches was being transformed by the inventiveness of the stucco (stuccowork) workers of Puebla. These local craftsmen interpreted the European tradition for the express purpose of creating a total environment that was at once Baroque and animistic. This decorative excess was instrumental in creating a sense of rupture from the vernacular to a new, marvelous realm. In Mexico the best examples of this are the churches of Santa Prisca in Taxco, Santa Clara and Santa Rosa de Querétaro in Dolores Hidalgo, Santa Carmen in San Luis Potosí, and the Loreto Chapel in Tepotzotlán. In the Sanctuary of Ocotlán in Tlaxcala and in Santa Prisca in Taxco, the architectural elements on both the outside and the inside are elongated vertically and show the extensive use of estipes, which are often anthropomorphic. The first exterior use of this device occurred in Guanajuato, in the Church of the Company (1746–65), by Friar José de la Cruz and Felipe de Ureña. The two elongated towers of Santa Prisca are the most impressive expression of this new verticality.

Indigenous influences

      The influence of the local indigenous cultures on Latin American architecture is most notable in the craftsmanship of the decorative carving and plasterwork. The violence of the conquest was such that there could not be a synthesis of the pre-Columbian cultures with the new European-Christian model. Yet the pervasiveness of the original cultures is manifest in the spirit of the decorative planar relief and the animistic renderings of vegetation and Classical motifs that are closer in spirit to early Romanesque carving (Western sculpture). In the case of the 18th-century San Pedro de Zepita, in the highlands of Peru, the lateral portal is framed by a large protective arch, a very refined example of this decorative planar “indigenous” style.

Ouro Prêto: Brazilian Baroque architecture in the 18th century

      Important examples of Baroque architecture emerged in Brazil during the 18th century, such as José Cardoso de Ramalho's Our Lady of Glory of Outeiro (1714–39) in Rio de Janeiro and the Church of Our Virgin of the Conception (1736–65) in Salvador (Bahia), designed by the engineer Manuel Cardoso da Sadanha. The stone for this latter church was cut by the mason Eugenio de Mota in Portugal and then shipped to Brazil.

      The most extraordinary Baroque churches in all of the Americas were built in the region of Minas Gerais beginning in the 18th century. The discovery of gold and diamonds in these highlands created an economic force that was independent of the coasts and that produced a unique culture. The Church of Our Lady of Pilar de Ouro Prêto (1730s), attributed to António Francisco Lisboa (brother of Manoel Francisco Lisboa, the father of Aleijadinho), was opened with a Baroque spectacle, the Triumph of the Eucharist, in the European manner. The exterior of the church is rectilinear, while the interior is polygonal—a faceted oval that is the precursor of the oval plan. This church was the first of a group of extraordinary Baroque churches designed by the Lisboa clan.

 The work of Aleijadinho (born António Francisco Lisboa, namesake of his uncle), one of the best architects of his time in all the Americas, makes this remote region of Brazil an unexpectedly stimulating architectural destination. Born to the architect Manoel Francisco Lisboa and an African slave in Ouro Prêto in the 1730s, Aleijadinho lived in his native city until his death in 1814. He suffered from what may have been leprosy as a youth, and, after a time, in order to work he was forced to have his sculpting tools strapped to his forearms. He sculpted, did carpentry, and created complete architectural designs. He collaborated on the Church of Nossa Senhora do Carmó in Sabará (1760s) and was responsible for the design and execution of the church's large portals, windows, and the curvilinear choir supported by sculpted atlantes (atlas). He also collaborated with his father on the design of Nossa Senhora do Carmó of Ouro Prêto. In the latter church the towers are bowed from each corner and visually interact with a facade that is both convex and concave.

      In 1774 Aleijadinho designed the two masterpieces of Brazilian Baroque architecture: the Franciscan church in São João d'El Rei and the Church of St. Francis of Assisi in Ouro Prêto. Of these two, the most harmonious is the Church of St. Francis. Its plan is based on the golden rectangle and the diagonal corners and curved balcony of his Church of Nossa Senhora do Carmó in Sabará. The front elevation is bowed in such a way as to incorporate the two towers into this curvilinear structure and to create a transition to the side elevation.

The new institutions of government

      Although some municipal palaces were built as early as the Municipal Palace of Tlaxcala (c. 1539), the development of institutional architecture that was not ecclesiastical began to flourish in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Customs houses, hospitals, prisons, treasuries, and post offices were built at the initiative of the military engineers and architects of the Neoclassical (Western architecture) movement. One of the most refined examples of this new building type, with its symmetrical plan organized around courtyards, is the Casa de Moneda (Royal Mint; c. 1780–99) in Santiago (Chile), by Joaquín Toesca y Ricci. The formation of the new viceroyalties, such as Argentina in 1776, coincided with the construction of the City Hall (1804–11) in Córdoba, Argentina, by the architect Tomás Toribio. The Neoclassical academic architecture employed by Toribio applies the language of Renaissance architecture (i.e., columns, arches, friezes) to large-scale buildings adjusted to accommodate new typologies and freed from a proportional system, lending a new form to the institutions of government.

Postindependence, c. 1810–the present

Architecture of the new independent republics, c. 1810–70

      The domination of Spain by Napoleon (Napoleon I) accelerated a period of revolution from about 1810 to 1870. By the mid-19th century most of Latin America was independent of Spain, which produced a reaction against 300 years of Spanish rule and the pervasive Baroque architecture it had popularized. Instead, the new republics looked toward France and Italy for the transformation of the colonial city into a modern, cosmopolitan one. New institutions of the republic were built, using the Neoclassical model, and the cities expanded outside the colonial grid, using the French model of the tree-lined boulevard. Important new public buildings such as customs offices, post offices, consulates, royal colleges, bullrings, theatres, and markets were built in the Beaux-Arts (or Second Empire (Second Empire style)) Neoclassical style. The influence of Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann (Haussmann, Georges-Eugène, Baron)'s urban design in Paris dominated the growth of Latin American capitals in the 19th century. urban renewal was also part of a more ambitious political movement intended to modernize the social structures in countries such as Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and Mexico.

      These countries had newly diversified export economies that participated in international markets. Capital investment from France and England helped these economies expand rapidly. The Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City is said to be the first example of a Parisian boulevard in the New World. By the 1880s this form of urban renewal had been realized in Palermo Park and the Avenida de Mayo in Buenos Aires, the Paseo del Prado and the Avenida Agraciada in Montevideo, Forestal Park and Santa Lucia Hill in Santiago, and the Guzman Blanco Boulevard and Paseo El Calvario in Caracas.

      In Mexico Lorenzo de la Hidalga, who graduated from the Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, continued the Neoclassical tradition with his Santa Anna Theatre of 1844 (with 3,000 seats), his remodeling of the Plaza Mayor (1843), his Penitentiary of Leon (1850s), and his Plaza de Toros (1850s), all in Mexico City. These Neoclassical buildings were situated within the colonial grid, and the city itself did not change much during this period.

      In Havana the principles of the Greek Revival (which hark back not to the Renaissance or even to Roman adaptations but to the Greek architecture of the 5th and 4th centuries BC) expressed themselves in El Templete (1827), a small chapel by Antonio María de la Torre. In Colombia the construction of the new building for the Capitol (c. 1847–1926) in Bogotá by the Danish architect Thomas (Tomás) Reed is one of the finest examples of this period. It is an austere building faced in a quarry stone, providing space for all the institutions of the state, including the congress, the supreme court, and the executive branch.

      In Peru the colonial city of Arequipa was rebuilt after the earthquake of 1784. The new houses, although very similar in plan to the traditional colonial houses, displayed facades that exhibited a new Neoclassical vocabulary. The new cathedral of Arequipa (mid-1800s), by Lucas Poblete, incorporated the triumphal arch motif into its facade. In Lima the Juan Ruiz Dávila Hospital (1848), built for Lima's new merchant class, is an elegant composition of pavilions that are united by lightweight wooden bridges around a series of courtyards.

      Among the new institutions built in Bolivia were José Núñez del Prado's Municipal Theatre (1834–45) and his Government Palace (1845–52). In Chile the Santiago School of Architecture was founded in 1849 by the Frenchman François Brunet de Baines. In both the school's pedagogy and its architecture, Brunet introduced to Santiago the influence of the French Beaux-Arts eclectic historicism. He then began to work for the government and designed the new Municipal Theatre (1853) in Santiago. In Uruguay the new Solis Theatre (1841–56) in Montevideo, by Carlos Zucchi, was based on a horseshoe-shaped plan similar to that of La Scala in Milan.

      In Buenos Aires the influence of the French and the English helped fuel anticolonial tendencies, and immigrant architects from France—including Pierre Benoit, Prosper Catelin, Charles Enrique Pellegrini, and José Pons—implemented new cultural policies. Englishmen James Bevans and Charles Rann also went to the New World, along with the Italians Carlos Zucchi and Paolo Caccianiga. These architects all were essential in creating a new cosmopolitan city in the image of Paris. Catelin designed the new facade of the Buenos Aires cathedral (1822) in a Neoclassical variation on the facade of the Parthenon. These architects worked for the government, building new markets, prisons, hospitals, churches, cemeteries, and urban boulevards.

      In Brazil the work of the French architect A.-H.-V. Grand Jean de Montigny dominated the first half of the 19th century. In Rio de Janeiro he designed the new Academy of Fine Arts (1826) as well as the Municipal Market (mid-1800s) and the Plaza of Commerce (1820). These works are characterized by the restrained use of Neoclassical elements. He was responsible for a great many residences in Buenos Aires as well as several country haciendas.

Academic architecture, c. 1870–1914

      By the end of the 19th century, most Latin American capitals could be said to be speaking Spanish (or Portuguese) but thinking in French—such was the dominance of all things French on the emerging cosmopolitan culture. The government provided the most important commissions, which were intended to consolidate this period of rapid economic expansion. In Buenos Aires, Francisco Tamburini remodeled the Casa Rosada in the late 1800s to become the offices of the president. This Beaux-Arts (Second Empire style) composition, with its central arch and side loggias, then became the standard for the institutions of government in the interior of Argentina: in Corrientes (a new jail by Juan Col, 1881–86), in Paraná (by Bernardo Rigoli-Luis Sessarego, 1885), in Catamarca (the churches by Luis Caravatti, 1880–90), and in Posadas (by Col, 1883).

      Architects abandoned the strict Neoclassicism of the earlier epoch for a more eclectic and random use of Classical elements, centred on the use of cupolas and great semicircular “thermal” windows such as those in the Palace of Government (c. 1900) in Salvador (Bahia), Brazil. The most ambitious example of this type was the Palace of Congress (c. 1904) in Buenos Aires, by Victor Meano. The new Congress in Caracas (1873), by Luciano Urdaneta, is also an eclectic Neoclassical composition centred on its elliptical cupola on the north wing. It features a large central courtyard with Corinthian (Corinthian order) columns made of cast iron manufactured in Philadelphia. In Chile the French engineer Gustave Eiffel (Eiffel, Gustave) used an elegant cast-iron structure for the Church of San Marcos (1875) in Arica.

      Perhaps the finest building of this period is the Colón Theatre in Buenos Aires (1905–08), by Tamburini. This theatre's sober exterior belies an opulent interior that was closely modeled on Charles Garnier (Garnier, Charles)'s Paris Opéra. New theatres were built in every city. In Buenos Aires as many as 20 were built, among these the Opera (1872), by Emilio Landois. In Montevideo the Cibils Theatre (1871; demolished) and the San Felipe (1880), both by Juan Alberto Capurro, are fine examples of Beaux-Arts (Second Empire style) theatres. Other important theatres include: in Chile, the Municipal Theatre of Santiago (1853–57) by Brunet; in Brazil, the Santa Isabel Theatre (1850) by Louis Léger Vauthier in Pernambuco, the Theatre of the Peace (1878) by José Tibúrcio de Magalhäes in Belém do Pará, the Municipal Theatre (c. 1905–09) by Francisco de Oliveira Passos in Rio, and the extraordinary Amazonas Theatre (1896) by B.A. de Oliveira Braga in Manaus; in Lima, the Municipal Theatre (1909); in Quito, the National Sucre Theatre (1886) by Francisco Schmidt; and in Caracas, perhaps one of the most interesting examples because of its curvilinear volume, the Guzmán Blanco Theatre (1879–81; today the Municipal Theatre) by Esteban Ricard.

      This period was again characterized by the direct influence of European architecture, created by immigrant architects or by national architects trained in Paris. The influence of French theorists such as Jacques-François Blondel (Blondel, Jacques-François), Marc-Antoine Laugier, Quatremère de Quincy, and Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand is evident in the academic architecture of the region. Examples of this eclecticism in Caracas include the Neoclassical Church of Santa Teresa (c. 1876) and the Neo-Gothic University of Caracas (1878), both by Hurtado Manrique. It is notable that the best examples of these new institutions are buildings that one could find in any of the European capitals. They show little trace of the creative transformations prevalent in the architecture of the previous 300 years in Latin America.

The reaction against academic architecture, c. 1900–29

      The period of roughly 1900 to 1929 was characterized by the exhaustion of the eclecticism of the late Beaux-Arts and the need for new models that were not based on a combination of Classical elements. Examples of the Art Nouveau and Modernista (a variant of Modernism) architecture of Barcelona, including the influence of the eccentric work of Antoni Gaudí (Gaudí, Antoni), began to appear in the larger cities of Latin America, and Art Deco eventually became a dominant style.

Art Nouveau

       Art Nouveau is characterized by the use of a long, sinuous organic line drawn from nature and used to produce a highly ornamental decorative design. It started at the turn of the 20th century and spread around Europe mostly through furniture and objects, with some fine examples of architecture in Belgium and France. One of the first buildings in Latin America to exhibit Art Nouveau elements is the Palace of Fine Arts (Fine Arts, Palace of) (1904–34) in Mexico City, by Adamo Boari. It is an example of the aforementioned eclecticism of the late Beaux-Arts period and includes several Art Nouveau elements—notably fan-shaped windows, curvilinear handrails, and an opalescent stained-glass window by Louis Comfort Tiffany (Tiffany, Louis Comfort). This building was part of an attempt to remodel the city to reflect the new republic under Porfirio Díaz (Díaz, Porfirio), and it was notable for its use of a steel structure. The Pavilion of Paraguay in the Centenary Exhibition of 1910 in Buenos Aires shows, with its curved structures, the influence of the Belgian Art Nouveau architect Victor Horta (Horta, Victor, Baron). In Rio the house at Rua do Russel (1910), by Antonio Virzi, has a combination of elements—such as a half arch with twin columns on a pedestal—that is reminiscent of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts building by Frank Heyling Furness (Furness, Frank Heyling). In Bogotá the typical floral motif of Art Nouveau is evident in the Faenza Theatre, designed by Arturo Tapias and Jorge Muñoz in 1924. The influence of the Wiener Sezession, the Austrian manifestation of Art Nouveau, is found in the Spanish Hospital (1910), by Julián García Nuñez in Buenos Aires, with its suspended metal cupola influenced by the Austrian architect Joseph Olbrich (Olbrich, Joseph) and its use of mosaics and coloured glass.

      A movement in architecture known as Modernista (Western architecture) originated in Barcelona during the last third of the 19th century. This movement, perhaps best seen in the work of the extraordinary Antoni Gaudí (Gaudí, Antoni), is characterized by the use of new technologies to create organic forms. Francisco Roca y Simó, who studied in Barcelona with Josep Maria Jujol and other Modernista architects, designed the Club Español (1916) in Rosario, Argentina. This elegant structure has a grand central hall covered with clerestory windows made of wrought iron, while its exterior facade is made of carved stone with large sculptural reliefs. A notable example of Modernista sculptural ornamentation is the eclectic Palacio Salvo in Montevideo (1928), by Mario Palanti.

Nationalist architecture (nationalism)

      At the same time, running counter to this opening of artistic freedom from academic architecture, the attempt to define an “American” style began to create a new tendency toward a nationalist architecture. In Mexico local architects attempted to define an architecture based on their pre-Columbian heritage. An early example of this is the Pavilion of Mexico, designed for the World Exposition of 1889 in Paris by Antonio Peñafiel. This pavilion is an eclectic interpretation of Aztec architecture based on contemporary archaeological expeditions. However, a general neo-Aztec revival was limited to a few symbolic works, such as the monument for Benito Juárez (1894) in Oaxaca and the triumphal arch for Porfirio Díaz (1906) in Mérida.

      The search for a national identity then turned into a revalorization of colonial architecture. The Mexican Pavilion by Carlos Obregón Santacilia and Carlos Tarditi, in the World Exposition in Rio de Janeiro in 1922, was a replica of a viceroyal palace with a Baroque portal. Later, the National University (1906–11) and the Bolivar Theatre (1911), both by Samuel Chávez, established a Neocolonial style in Mexico City. In Caracas the early work of Manuel Mujica Millán established a modern Neo-Baroque architecture not unlike the Mission style of California. His Nuestra Señora del Carmen in Campo Alegre (1935) and several houses in this new neighbourhood evoked the culture of a Hispanic past while also incorporating modern elements.

      In Lima the Archbishop's Palace (1920s), by Ricardo Malachowsky, who studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, is a replica of past colonial buildings on a larger scale. In Buenos Aires the Cervantes Theatre (1918–21), by Fernando Aranda and Bartolomé Repetto, begins to combine colonial and Classical elements. The Argentinean Pavilion by Martín Noel, for the Iberoamerican Exposition in Sevilla (1929), is an eclectic replica of a type of Mexican Baroque facade.

Art Deco

      Within a short time, this academicism of the Neocolonial movement gave way to the success of the geometric decorative architecture of Art Deco. Art Deco would become the preferred style throughout the Americas for commercial ventures such as theatres and office buildings. This decorative style incorporated Cubist (Cubism) sensibilities for the prismatic within a rectilinear framework of corners and pyramidal volumes while avoiding the previous floral motifs of Art Nouveau. In Buenos Aires the Banco de Santander (1929) and the Casa del Teatro (1927), both by Alejandro Virasoro, are examples of early Art Deco, with an abstract classicism in the use of square fluted columns and squared motifs similar to those found in the work of the Austrian architect Josef Hoffman (Hoffmann, Josef). In Lima the Aldabas-Melchormalo Building (1932), by Augusto Guzmán Robles, and the Reiser and Curioni Building (1943) are both good examples of Art Deco in commercial, speculative projects. In Mexico City the National Insurance Building (1928), by Manuel Ortiz Monasterio, is perhaps the first use of Art Deco for a skyscraper in Latin America.

      Art Deco introduced the ideas of modern architecture that would eventually take hold in the entire region. In Uruguay the Customs House (1929), by J. Herran, is an elegant example of Art Deco incorporating large arches. In Buenos Aires there are numerous examples of Art Deco commercial and residential buildings, such as the Shell-Mex Building (1936), by the firm of Calvo, Jacobs, and Jimenez. The best and most emblematic of these works is the Kavanaugh Building (1934–35), by the firm of Sánchez, Lagos, and De La Torre. This building, which faces the Plaza San Martín, incorporated setbacks, balconies, and long horizontal windows, making reference to the large ocean liners iconic of this period. It was also the highest concrete frame structure built at the time.

The birth of modern architecture, c. 1929–65

Brazil

      In 1929, when the Swiss architect Le Corbusier (Corbusier, Le) was invited to give lectures in Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil, he was received by countries that were ready to apply and transform European Modernism (Western architecture) in the face of the pressing needs of their new and vibrant economies. By the time Le Corbusier returned to Brazil in 1936 to work with Lúcio Costa (Costa, Lúcio) and his team of young architects—Oscar Niemeyer (Niemeyer, Oscar), Affonso Reidy (Reidy, Affonso), Carlos Leão, Ernani Vasconcelos, and Jorge Moreira—on a university campus and the Ministry of Education, modern architecture had already taken hold throughout Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay.

      The first works of modern architecture in Brazil were a series of houses built in São Paolo by the Russian émigré Gregori Warchavchik. His house on Rua Santa Cruz (1927–28) is a stark composition of plain white cubic forms whose lines are softened by the extensive use of tropical plants. Warchavchik wrote in his Manifesto of Functional Architecture (1925), “Down with absurd decoration and up with logical construction!” This call for a new architecture based on rational principles came at a time when Brazil was undergoing a significant political and economic change.

      In 1935 the new government of Getúlio Vargas (Vargas, Getúlio), through his education minister, Gustavo Capanema, commissioned Costa and a group of young architects, with Le Corbusier as a consultant, to design a new building for the Ministry of Health and Education. This building would become emblematic of the absorption of the principles of European Modernism within a Brazilian context. A brilliant generation of more than 30 exceptional architects would take the principles of European Modernism and transform them into a truly Brazilian architecture that took advantage of the technological advances of reinforced-concrete construction and the benevolence of a tropical climate, which together enabled a transparent continuity between interiors and exteriors. This generation of Brazilian architects was extremely prolific and produced excellent structures that did not simply reproduce European models but rather evolved into a truly original architecture that was at the forefront of the vanguard worldwide. The central figure of this generation was Costa (Costa, Lúcio), who was an excellent architect, planner, and theoretician.

      Although Costa's early work was in the then prevalent Neocolonial style, he soon became a convert to the ideas of Modernism. More than any other architect, he was responsible for the education of a whole new generation of architects and the subsequent cultural transformation of the country. Niemeyer (Niemeyer, Oscar), perhaps the most famous of all Costa's protégés, was able to transform the Modernist architecture of Le Corbusier and other masters into a unique national language that would open up new alternatives in modern architecture. The Brazilian Pavilion for the New York World's Fair of 1939, designed by Costa and Niemeyer, with interiors by Paul Lester Wiener, was widely considered the best pavilion in the fair. Its fluid treatment of space was exemplified in its generous curved ramp and the transparency of the curvilinear glass facade opening to an interior court landscaped with a large reflecting pool full of Victoria amazonica water lilies.

      The Seaplane Station (1938), by Attilio Corrêa Lima, was one of the first radically modern buildings built in Rio. An elegant concrete spiral staircase connects the ticketing and luggage hall with the restaurant and viewing terrace on the second floor. The reinforced concrete structure and the side walls of the building are faced with travertine, which is in artful contrast to the large expanses of glass that allow the visitor to see through the building. Shortly thereafter, the Brazilian Press Association Building (1938), by Marcelo and Milton Roberto, incorporated the idea of a fixed brise-soleil that would provide natural light without the heat and glare of the strong tropical sun; it was the first large-scale modern building constructed in Brazil. Future Brazilian president Juscelino Kubitschek (Kubitschek, Juscelino), then the mayor of Belo Horizonte, commissioned Niemeyer to design a casino, dance hall, and yacht club for the new development of Pampulha, a garden suburb. The extraordinary casino (1942), sited on a promontory just above an artificial lake, is the first example of a truly original free-form Modernism in Latin America. The building is organized on a square grid of free-standing columns broken by an elegant system of ramps. The main rectilinear building is then modulated by the circular theatre and nightclub that overlooks the lake below. The lyrical ingenuity of the various circulation routes within the building, and the way it engages the landscape, signal the beginning of an organic Modernism that would take hold in Brazil. Perfectly adapted to its tropical climate, the Pampulha complex relies on the surrounding landscape design by Roberto Burle Marx (Burle Marx, Roberto) to provide continuity between nature and the new abstract architectural forms.

      The Pedregulho Housing Complex (1947–52) in Rio, by Reidy (Reidy, Affonso), is one of the first projects commissioned by the government to provide a complete community with housing, parks, schools, shopping, and sports facilities for low-income families. Rio's Children's Clinic (1953), by Moreira, is extremely refined in its details and its use of ramped circulation spaces. The Santos-Dumont Airport (1939–44) in Rio, by Marcelo and Milton Roberto, with its generous round, columned open gallery, integrates the landscape design of Burle Marx with the airport and the city beyond.

      Part of the creative experimentation of Brazilian architecture took place in its residential architecture. Henrique Mindlin's house for George Hime (1949 or 1950) in Nogueira, Rio de Janeiro state; João Batista Vilanova Artigas's house (1949) in Campo Belo, São Paulo state; Lina Bo Bardi's house (1951) in São Paulo; Sérgio Bernardes's house for Guilherme Brandi (1952) in Petrópolis; and Reidy's house for Carmen Portinho (1952) in Jacarepaguá, Rio de Janeiro state, are all examples of the extraordinary diversity and formal complexity of this period. Niemeyer's house (1953) in Canoas, Rio de Janeiro state, is perhaps the best example of an architecture in which the interior space and the exterior landscape are integrated to such an extent that a boundary between the two is not perceived.

      The idea for a new capital in the Brazilian interior was begun in 1946 by the regime of Vargas (Vargas, Getúlio). After Kubitschek was elected president of Brazil in 1955, he commissioned his old friend Niemeyer to design the new presidential Palace of the Dawn (1956–58), and in 1956 he began the process that eventually selected Costa's master plan for the new capital, Brasília, the quintessential city of the 20th century. It was designed with the utopian ambition of creating a new capital based on Kubitschek's (Kubitschek, Juscelino) socialist agenda and the avant-garde notion of a modern city planned for the automobile. The institute created for building the city, Novacap (Companhia Urbanizadora da Nova Capital do Brasil; the “New Capital Urbanization Agency of Brazil”), hired Niemeyer (Niemeyer, Oscar) as its lead architect, and for the next several years Niemeyer designed and built almost all the major buildings of the city.

      During the inauguration in 1960, Kubitschek said of Brasília's architecture:

It did, of course, materialize an aspiration that is even older than our independence as a nation and expressed anew the pioneer spirit that has always characterized the Brazilians; but it is the architectural features of Brasília that reflect the high degree of civilization in my country, just as Greek and Latin architecture and sculpture reflected the magnitude of Greek and Roman civilizations.

      Costa's (Costa, Lúcio) cross-shaped master plan created a linear city that is curved and bisected by a monumental axis containing all the government buildings, centred on the open central axis that is occupied by the domed senate, assembly, and secretariat buildings and leading to the monumental Plaza of the Three Powers. This plaza is flanked on two sides by the Planato Palace for the executive branch on the north and the Palace of the Supreme Court to the south. Because the plaza is almost a quarter of a mile wide, the buildings stand like sculptures in the marked horizon of the landscape beyond. The residential areas are organized around the superquadras, lots that are 290 square yards (about 240 square metres) and contain 10 six-story apartment blocks. Each neighbourhood is organized around four superquadras, which also contain shops, a supermarket, a chapel, a movie theatre, a nursery and primary school, a social recreation club, and a clinic.

      The most important shortcoming of this urban strategy is the failure to create a true community within these neighbourhoods, which to this day appear a little desolate. The most successful part of Brasília is the formal beauty of the monumental architecture of the central government district, where the buildings' ethereal concrete porticos shield the glass facades from the strong sun. The presence of the horizon is pervasive in the openness of the landscaping, designed by Burle Marx, that surrounds the buildings.

Mexico

      During the 1930s, when the political and economic reconstruction of Mexico was under way, modern architecture seemed more suitable for the construction of the schools, hospitals, and public housing of the new state than did the previous Neocolonial style. The Institute of Hygiene (1925) in Popotla, Mexico, by José Villagrán García, was one of the first examples of this new national architecture. The studio designed by Juan O'Gorman (O'Gorman, Juan) in San Angel, Mexico City, for Diego Rivera (Rivera, Diego) and Frida Kahlo (Kahlo, Frida) (1931–32)—which was inspired by Le Corbusier's studio in Paris for the French painter and theoretician Amédée Ozenfant (Ozenfant, Amédée)—is a fine example of vanguard architecture built in Latin America. Mexico's first project of high-density, low-cost housing was the Centro Urbano Alemán (1947–49), Mexico City, by Mario Pani.

 Perhaps the most ambitious project of modern architecture was the construction, begun in 1950, of the campus for the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Mexico, National Autonomous University of) in Mexico City, which was built under the direction of Enrique del Moral, Pani, and Carlos Lazo. This new campus followed a trend for cities with universities being built in Rio and Caracas, and it was the perfect project to put modern architecture and planning into practice. In the new campus the art of the Mexican muralists was incorporated into the architecture, beginning with Rivera's relief in the new Olympic Stadium (1952), by Augusto Pérez Palacios, Jorge Bravo, and Raúl Salinas. The Rectory (1952), by Pani, del Moral, and Salvador Ortega Flores, includes murals by David Alfaro Siqueiros (Siqueiros, David Alfaro). Perhaps the best integration of mural art with the new architecture is seen in the University Library, by O'Gorman, Gustavo Saavedra, and Juan Martínez de Velasco, which features a monumental mosaic design on the facade by O'Gorman.

      This was a period of diverse experimentation and even structural innovation, as seen in the thin-shell concrete structures by the Spanish architect Felix Candela (Candela, Felix), such as his Church of the Miraculous Virgin (1953) in Mexico City and the Cosmic Ray Pavilion (1952) on the university campus. The integration of art and architecture became a constant in Mexican modern architecture, which can be seen in the extraordinary courtyard of the Anthropology Museum (c. 1963–65) in Mexico City, by Pedro Ramírez Vázquez.

      Another side of Mexican modern architecture is represented in the work of Luis Barragán (Barragán, Luis). The houses that he designed in the 1950s and '60s explored a way to reconcile the lessons of Le Corbusier with the Spanish colonial tradition. This new synthesis created a completely original Modernist architecture that is uniquely adapted to its environment. In his own house in Mexico City (1947–48), he used a dark, narrow entrance corridor to mark the transition between the intense light and public character of the street and the intimacy and controlled light of the interior, and he transformed the roof garden into a dreamlike enclosed room open to the sky. In the Tlalpan Chapel (1952–55), his use of light is masterful; it enters the chapel from above and reflects the altar he designed with the artist Mathias Goeritz. Barragán's residential work shows how the relationship between man and nature can be incorporated within the patterns of everyday life. The integration into the design of pools of water for the horses' use, the creation of a private rooftop garden utilizing vibrantly coloured walls, and the design of a wooden shade for a bedroom window to block harsh sunlight make the ordinary parts of a house into spaces for contemplation.

Venezuela

      As did the rest of Latin America, Venezuela saw the beginning of modern architecture in the 1930s with Art Deco. The best examples of this are several government buildings in Caracas: the new City Hall (1933), by Gustavo Wallis; the Ministry of Public Works (1934–35), by Carlos Guinand Sandoz; and the Museum of Fine Arts (1935–36), by Carlos Raúl Villanueva (Villanueva, Carlos Raúl). At the same time, Villanueva and Luis Malaussena Pimental designed the Venezuelan Pavilion for the Paris World's Fair of 1937 in the official Neocolonial style. By the end of the 1930s, the first truly modern works had been built: the Fermin Toro School (1936) in Caracas, by Cipriano Domínguez, who had worked in Le Corbusier's studio in Paris, and the Gran Colombia School (c. 1939–42) in Caracas, by Villanueva. Art Deco elements of the Gran Columbia School are evident, for example, in its streamlined horizontal windows and the rounded corners on the tower adjacent to the large clock. It has an L-shaped plan with open-air corridors, terraces, and stairs facing the courtyard; all of the classrooms have large glass doors that open to a terrace.

      The redevelopment of the El Silencio neighbourhood in Caracas was the first large-scale urban-renewal project in Latin America. The project completely restructured a slum in the heart of downtown and created a new downtown with new housing. Villanueva undertook this enormous task from 1941 to 1945. The result was the creation of a new public square with several arcade-lined streets. The exterior of the perimeter housing blocks, with their Neocolonial arcades, continued the vocabulary of the centre, while the interior of the courtyards and balconies expressed a modern vocabulary.

      It was during the 1950s that modern Venezuelan architecture flourished and began to transform orthodox European Modernism into original forms that were suited to the local climate and available technology. The Centro Símon Bolívar (mid-1940s–mid-1950s) in Caracas, by Domínguez, is a complex modern building that includes two office towers and a large courtyard connecting the newly renovated El Silencio with the new Avenida Bolivar, a central boulevard planned by the Frenchman Maurice Rotival in the 1930s. In a new city centre farther to the east, the Polar Building (1952–54), by Martín Vegas and José Miguel Galia, presents a modern approach to fenestration. Although it is a concrete structure with large cantilevers in two directions, the general organization of the plan and the curtain wall in aluminum and glass exhibit the rigour of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig), who was Vegas's teacher at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.

      Without a doubt, the most important Venezuelan project of the 1950s was the new University City of Caracas, the main campus of the Central University of Venezuela (c. 1944–60), designed by Villanueva (Villanueva, Carlos Raúl). Formed by nearly 40 buildings on about 500 acres (about 200 hectares), it represents an extremely effective use of architecture and landscape to create an environment of intellectual freedom and creativity. Originally modeled after a traditional English or U.S. university campus with courtyards, the university's master plan was modified by Villanueva about 1950, resulting in perhaps the first attempt at a modern urbanism. The new spatial organization broke away from traditional hierarchies, and the entire campus is an array of plazas, covered walkways, parks, buildings, and public art. The artworks are integrated into the buildings, sometimes as murals and other times as freestanding sculptures that activate the public space.

      The heart of the university is the 3,000-seat auditorium called the Aula Magna (1952–54). The entrance to the auditorium is through a covered plaza, a succession of open and covered spaces with concrete columns and glazed tiles where light is introduced through controlled patios and sunscreens punctuated by works of art. This space is at once an open-air museum and a circulation corridor that unites the administrative offices, the two theatres, and the main library. Villanueva, the American sculptor Alexander Calder (Calder, Alexander), and the acoustic consultants Bolt, Beranek, and Newman worked closely together to create a theatre that proposed a new conception of space. Exploiting the eye's ability to focus within a curved space, the bifocal parallax mechanism—which allows for the perception of distance—is challenged by this fish-eye effect and by the strong interaction of colour in the floating sculptural objects. The space expands and contracts, submerging the spectator in a perceptive oceanic tension in which the forms link the spectator and the audience.

Uruguay

      During the 1920s and '30s in Uruguay, the political climate of liberalism, in conjunction with a prosperous and educated population, created an ideal environment for the reception of modern architecture. The new public schools in Montevideo designed by Juan Antonio Scasso in 1926 exhibit a rational scheme of simple volumes. The design for the new Municipal Palace (1930) of Montevideo, by Mauricio Cravotto, although a symmetrical composition, is rendered in a modern vocabulary. The Montevideo department store Lapido (1929–33), by Juan Aubriot and Ricardo Valabrega, is a good example of the new Modernist architecture that quickly took hold in Latin America after Le Corbusier's famous lectures of 1929.

      The central figure in Montevideo was Julio Vilamajó, who designed the Faculty of Engineering there in 1937. The spatial sequences on the ground floor, the articulation of the different volumes, and the complex functions of the building are typical of his architecture. His concern for an honesty of expression through the correct use of materials and structure is evident in all his work and also in his role as an educator in the School of Architecture of Montevideo's University of the Republic, which in the 1930s was the most advanced in all the Americas.

      When Joaquín Torres García returned to Montevideo in 1934 to set up a school, he was part of a group of artists who—like Piet Mondrian (Mondrian, Piet) and Theo van Doesburg (Doesburg, Theo van) in Paris—considered abstraction the highest expression of the human spirit. At the same time, he felt it was important to incorporate symbols into his work without negating the basic principles of abstraction. His Taller Torres García, established in 1943, launched the careers of many artists, including Augusto and Horacio Torres, Julio Alpuy, and Gonzalo Fonseca. The ideas of the Taller Torres García regarding the integration of art and architecture would have a great impact on architects both in Uruguay and in Buenos Aires. Mario Payssé-Reyes was a student of Vilamajó and inherited his studio at the School of Architecture. His seminary for the archdiocese of Montevideo (1954) is a large complex organized around several patios. The use of brick and the collaboration with Horacio Torres in the wall reliefs, doorways, and more make this perhaps the best example from the region of the ideal of integrating the arts.

      The work of Eladio Dieste built upon the constructive approach to the arts advocated by the Taller Torres García. Dieste was able to invent a new structural system based on the amalgamation of brick, mortar, and iron. In his Atlántida Church (1957–58) the brick walls and roof undulate in ways that are disorienting. In the interior the articulation of space and light is achieved by the inflection of the ceramic structures with an unusual geometry that contradicts traditional masonry techniques. He also used this technique in his designs for industrial warehouses and factories, such as the Agroindustrias Massaro (1955) in Canelones and the Frugoni Warehouse (1955) in Montevideo.

Argentina

      By the time of Le Corbusier's Buenos Aires lectures in 1929, there was already a group of Argentine architects working in the modern vocabulary. The project for the Sugar City (1924)—a Marxist, perhaps utopian, experiment in the rural Tucumán province—by Alberto Prebisch and Ernesto Vautier; the office building La Equitativa del Plata (1930) in the centre of Buenos Aires, by Alejandro Virasoro; La Maison Garay (1936) in Buenos Aires, by Jorge Kalnay; the Siemens Building (1927) in Buenos Aires, by Hans Hertlein; and the houses by Alejandro Bustillo for Victoria Ocampo in Mar del Plata (1926) and for Palermo Chico in Buenos Aires (1929) are some of the early manifestations of modern architecture. The Sarmiento School (1937) in Córdoba, by Juárez Cáceres, exemplifies the use of modern architecture to renovate public educational institutions. The development of speculative apartment buildings in Buenos Aires also led architects to apply the Modernist vocabulary in projects such as Antonio Vilar's building at Ugarteche (1929), Léon Dourge's Malabia (1933), and Jorge Kálnay's building (1932) at the intersection of Santa Fe and Rodriguez Peña. The Gran Rex Cinema (c. 1937) in Buenos Aires, by Alberto Prebisch, represents a refined example of a rationalist modern architecture based on simple cubic forms with minimal ornamentation. Perhaps the most eloquent Modernist house built during this time is the Casa Vilar (1935) by Vilar in San Isidro, Buenos Aires.

      After working in Le Corbusier's atelier in Paris, Antonio Bonet returned to Buenos Aires and formed the “Austral” group in 1938 with Jorge Ferrari Hardoy, Juan Kurchan, Horacio Vera Barros, Abel López Chas, and others. They were interested in reacting against the official architecture and design and in developing an Argentine experimental style based on their manifesto of 1939. Perhaps the best result of this collaboration is the steel and leather “Butterfly” chair shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and then manufactured by Knoll International. Bonet's Berlingieri House (1946) and his hotel and restaurant, Solana del Mar (1946), both in Punta Ballena, Uruguay, show the influence of a vernacular period in Le Corbusier's houses of the 1940s, with their barrel vaults and infill brick. The apartment house at Virrey del Pino (1943) in Buenos Aires, by Jorge Ferrari Hardoy and Kurchan, includes a Corbusian double-height terrace.

      Amancio Williams and César Janello formed their style in the early 1940s, under the influence of the nonfigurative avant-garde Madí group and the teachings of Tomás Maldonado. The search for a design methodology that was a result of an objective arrangement of technical data, without any nonessential illusion, found its expression in the work of Williams, especially in the house he built for his father, the House over the Brook (c. 1945) in Mar del Plata, and unbuilt projects such as the Houses in Space (c. 1943), the Buenos Aires Airport (1945), and the Suspended Office Building (1946). This work was central to the debates around abstract art versus concrete art in the circle of artists that included Lidy Prati and Maldonado.

      The Bank of London (1960–66), in Buenos Aires, by Clorindo Testa, Santiago Sánchez, Elía Federico Peralta Ramos, and Alfredo Agostini, used large-scale concrete piers on the facade in order to leave the interior of the banking hall free of columns. The structure's rough concrete forms and complex space, where the upper three stories appear to float while bridges link the different horizontal planes, make this building a prime example of the Brutalist architecture (New Brutalism) of the early 1960s.

      Perhaps Argentina's most elegant modern architecture in the 1960s was that of Mario Roberto Álvarez. His architecture demonstrated clarity of structure and a refined choice of materials. His Belgrano Day School (1964) in Buenos Aires and Theatre and Cultural Center San Martín (c. 1953–64) are examples of his sobriety of expression.

Contemporary architecture, c. 1965–the present

      The quality of architectural production since about 1965 does not live up to the standards that were set during the “golden age” of Latin American architecture from roughly 1929 to 1960. This could be the result of diminishing economic resources coupled with the loss of faith in the process of modernization in developing Latin American economies. Nevertheless, some exceptional work has been produced during this period throughout the Americas.

      In Cuba the major buildings of interest constructed after 1960 are Ricardo Porro and Vittorio Garatti's art schools in Havana (1962–65). The serpentine form of Porro's School of Plastic Arts and Modern Dance School and Garatti's Ballet and Music School use brick vaults and domes to create dramatic, well-lit spaces.

      In Chile, Emilio Duhart's United Nations (1966) building on the outskirts of Santiago is a monumental concrete building in the form of a square, with a large court occupied by the assembly buildings. The main assembly hall is shaped in the form of a helicoidal ziggurat, giving the building a strong presence in relation to the surrounding Andean landscape.

      Chile has produced a refined architecture that combines a respect for early Modernism with a sensitivity to materials and construction techniques. The work of Christian de Groote is rooted in the landscape at the particular conditions of the site. His Fuenzalida House (1984) in Santiago is a long and narrow house that is framed by two parallel brick walls, which establish a horizontal line within the landscape and serve to give structure to the interior and exterior spaces. The Centro-Maderas Timber Processing Plant (1996) in Santiago de Chile, by José Cruz Ovalle and Juan Purcell, uses large-span wood trusses that have been modulated by a gentle curve (in section) that accommodates a two-story office block within the large warehouse.

      The Pizarras Ibéricas Building (1997), by Mathias Klotz, in Santiago de Chile, also uses a material to express the nature of the building. In this case the stone on the exterior represents a company that supplies thin laminates of stone. The Manantiales Building (1997–99) in Santiago, by Luis Izquierdo, Antonia Lehman, Raimundo Lira, and José Domingo Peñafiel, organizes the structure to reflect the static forces of the building and makes them legible on the facade. Situated on the coast of Chile, the Casa Pite (2003–05), by Smiljan Radic, is a refined integration of cantilevered prismatic volumes that seem to be floating on a rocky cliff overlooking the ocean.

      In Colombia the Torres del Parque (1965), by Rogelio Salmona, is a housing project with 294 units. The three brick-lined towers are shaped to evoke the inverted cone of the adjacent bullring. Salmona had worked from 1948 to 1955 in Le Corbusier's studio in Paris with other architects from Latin America, such as Teodoro González de León from Mexico and Augusto Tobito from Venezuela. Salmona's Casa de Huespedes (1980) in Cartagena has its origins in an abandoned fortification on this island site. This guesthouse for the president, made of coral stone, is organized around a courtyard and roof terraces that relate to the landscape. The house is a perfect synthesis of modern spaces that incorporates the Islamic garden, the courtyard, and roof terraces that recall the old fortifications.

      In Venezuela, Jesús Tenreiro-Degwitz's Corporacion Venezolana de Guayana Headquarters in Cuidad Guayana (1967–68) was the first building to be erected in the centre of this new city. It is an elegant pyramidal structure built in steel, with large infill brick panels inset as a sunscreen. This structure is a synthesis of Louis I. Kahn (Kahn, Louis I.) and Mies van der Rohe (Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig) but is not imitative of either. In Caracas W.J. Alcock adapted R. Buckminster Fuller (Fuller, R Buckminster)'s geodesic dome as the roof for his Poliedro Stadium (1972), creating the biggest span of any aluminum structure. Alcock's residential work, such as his Lopez House (1974) and Ribereña House (1979), both in Caracas, shows a rigorous concrete frame structure that is adapted to the landscape and infilled with brick. The Edificio Torre Europa (1976), an elegant curtain-wall office building, and the San Ignacio shopping centre (2000), by Carlos Gómez de Llarena, are examples of the best commercial architecture in Caracas. In the 1980s the influence of Italian architect Aldo Rossi (Rossi, Aldo) was seen in the Palmasola House (1983) in Caracas and in the theatre (1982) and sports centre (1984) for Interalumina in Ciudad Guayana by Carlos Brillembourg. The adaptation of vernacular elements is prevalent in the residential work of Federico Vegas.

      Ricardo Legorreta's Camino Real Hotel (1968) in Mexico City is a masterful composition of courtyards and roof terraces within the walls of one downtown block. This work is indebted to the work of Barragán (Barragán, Luis), applying his methods on a larger public scale. In Mexico the Brutalism of Teodoro González de León's Music Conservatory (1994) and the Neo-Barragánesque library (1994) by Legorreta coexist in the new National Centre of the Arts with the work of a younger generation of architects who are influenced by contemporary architecture in Europe and North America. The School of Theatre (1994), by TEN Arquitectos, and the School of Dance (1994), by Luis Vicente Flores, express a modernity that reinforces the government's desire to present a new image of Mexico as an industrialized country with a global presence. The refined work of Alberto Kalach and Daniel Alvarez stands out both in their numerous residences as well as in the San Juan de Letrán Station (1994) in Mexico City. Their Casa Contadero (1997) in Contadero, Mexico City, takes advantage of a steep site to become part of the hill as well as to stand apart from it. The residential work of José Antonio Aldrete-Haas in Mexico City shows both the influence of the attenuated Modernism of the great Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza and a continuity with the lessons of Barragán.

      In the province of Córdoba, Argentina, the work of Miguel Angel Roca shows the influence of his teacher, Louis I. Kahn (Kahn, Louis I.), while his restructuring of public squares and pedestrian walks reflects postmodern (Western architecture) concerns. The Laboratory for Biotechnology and Ecology (1988), by Jorge Moscato and Rolando Schere, in Chascomús, Argentina, and the summer house (1989) in Punta de las Piedras, Uruguay, by Horacio Baliero and Ernesto Katzenstein, are good examples of the influence of the work and writings of Rossi. A revival of the tradition of rational Modernism, looking toward the architecture of Antonio Vilar and Amancio Williams, has influenced a new generation of Argentine architects such as Pablo Beitía, Claudio Vekstein, Mariano Clusellas, Oscar Fuentes, Roberta and Paula Lavarello, and Sergio Foster. Perhaps the most important work by this group is the Xul Solar Museum (1994–95) in Buenos Aires by Beitía.

      The varied and inventive work of Pritzker Prize-winning architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha (Mendes da Rocha, Paulo), coming from a tradition of Paulista (São Paulo) architects such as João Batista Vilanova Artigas, Ruy Ohtake, and Eduardo de Almeida, represented Brazil's best architecture at the turn of the 21st century. Mendes da Rocha's sensitive restoration and reconstruction of the New Pinacoteca of São Paulo (1993) transformed a 19th-century masonry building, originally designed for the city's School of Arts and Crafts, into a modern museum with well-lit spaces that are appropriate for both large- and small-scale contemporary art. His remodeling of the Praça do Patriarca in the centre of São Paolo (2002) is organized around an elegant suspended steel canopy that protects a large pedestrian underpass.

Carlos F. Brillembourg

Additional Reading

Much of the scholarship on Latin American architecture has not been translated into English. For that reason, this bibliography includes with the major English sources a number of works that have not been translated. The most comprehensive text available on the subject, covering the entire region and ranging from 1500 to 1976, is Ramón Gutiérrez, Arquitectura y urbanismo en Iberoamérica, 4th ed. (2002). Another valuable overview is Roberto Segre and Rafael López Rangel, Architettura e territorio nell'America latina (1982).

Colonial period, c. 1492–1810

General studies of architectural developments from the time of conquest to the period of independence include Diego Angulo Iñiguez, Planos de monumentos arquitectónicos de América y Filipinas existentes en el Archivo de Indias, 7 vol. (1933–39), a comprehensive multivolume work that thoroughly documents original drawings of the major buildings from the colonial period; Graziano Gasparini, América, barroco y arquitectura (1972), a general text that covers the three centuries of colonial rule, with an emphasis on the evolution of a uniquely American Baroque architecture; Graziano Gasparini (ed.), Arquitectura colonial iberoamericana (1997), the best anthology by the leading authorities in the field, covering the entire colonial period; Pál Kelemen, Baroque and Rococo in Latin America, 2nd ed., 2 vol. (1967, reissued 1977), a general text that covers Baroque art and architecture; George Kubler and Martin Soria, Art and Architecture in Spain and Portugal and Their American Dominions, 1500 to 1800 (1959), a general text; and Roberto Segre, Eliana Cárdenas, and Lohania Aruca, Historia de la arquitectura y del urbanismo: América Latina y Cuba, 2nd ed. (1986), a general text that covers the major developments of the period.Important studies of more-specific topics related to the colonial period include Ralph Bennett (ed.), Settlements in the Americas: Cross-Cultural Perspectives (1993), a scholarly anthology on urban themes during the colonial period; Graziano Gasparini, La arquitectura colonial en Venezuela, 3rd ed. (1985), a good general text covering the colonial period in Venezuela, and “Las influencias indígenas en la arquitectura colonial de Hispano América,” Boletín del Centro de Investigaciónes Históricas y Estéticas, 4:75–80 (1956), a description of the contributions by Amerindian cultures to the architecture and urbanism of the colonial period; George Kubler, “El problema de los aportes europeos no ibericos en la arquitectura colonial latinoamericana,” Boletín del Centro de Investigaciónes Históricas y Estéticas, 9:104–116 (1968), a discussion of the influence of German, Flemish, Italian, and French ideas and texts in the architecture of the colonial period, and “Mexican Urbanism in the Sixteenth Century,” The Art Bulletin, 24(2):160–171 (June 1942), a discussion of urbanism in the new cities of Mexico; Sidney David Markman, Colonial Architecture of Antigua, Guatemala (1966), an early text that describes the monuments and urbanism of this city; Erwin Walter Palm, “Perspectivas de una historia de la arquitectura colonial hispanoamericana,” Boletín del Centro de Investigaciónes Históricas y Estéticas, 9:21–37 (1968), a history of the pioneering architectural historians of this field from 1914 to 1962; Paolo Portoghesi, “La contribución americana al desarrollo de la arquitectura barroca,” Boletín del Centro de Investigaciónes Históricas y Estéticas, 9:137–146 (1968), a discussion of the counterinfluence of American architecture in Europe; and Germán Téllez and Ernesto Moure, Reportorio formal de arquitectura doméstica Cartagena de Indias, época colonial (1982), a monograph on the architecture and urbanism of Cartagena, with very detailed drawings of the residential typologies.

Postindependence, c. 1810 to the present

General studies of architectural developments after about 1810 include Arturo Almandoz (ed.), Planning Latin America's Capital Cities, 1850–1950 (2002), a collection of essays that cover all the major cities and their transformation from 1850 to 1950; and Ramón Gutiérrez, Arquitectura del siglo XIX en Iberoamérica, 1800–1850 (1979), a comprehensive text that describes the entire region from 1800 to 1850.Studies of the pivotal period from about 1930 to 1960 include Carlos Brillembourg (ed.), Latin American Architecture, 1929–1960: Contemporary Reflections (2004), an anthology of texts based on a conference organized by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 2002, covering various aspects of this period in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, Cuba, Santo Domingo, and Puerto Rico; Francisco Bullrich, New Directions in Latin American Architecture (1969), a concise treatment of the major developments during this period; Lauro Cavalcanti, When Brazil Was Modern: A Guide to Architecture 1928–1960 (2003), a comprehensive guide to most of the architects working during this period in Brazil; Valerie Fraser, Building the New World: Studies in the Modern Architecture of Latin America, 1930–1960 (2000), a general text that covers the work done in Mexico, Venezuela, and Brazil during this period; Henry Russell Hitchcock, Latin American Architecture Since 1945 (1955, reissued 1972), the catalog of an important exhibition organized by the Museum of Modern Art in 1955 that introduced this work to the American public; and Henrique E. Mindlin, Modern Architecture in Brazil, trans. from Portuguese (1956), an excellent survey of the best architecture in Brazil from this period.Studies examining more-recent architectural developments in the region include Latin American Architecture, A New Generation (1998), an examination of select work; Malcolm Quantrill (ed.), Latin American Architecture: Six Voices (2000), an anthology featuring six contemporary architects and six critics practicing in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Venezuela, and Mexico; Miguel Angel Roca (ed.), The Architecture of Latin America (1995), a survey of the architecture of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru from about 1970 to 1990; and several works by Roberto Segre: Las estructuras ambientales en América latina (1977), regarding environmental structures in the region, América latina fin de milenio: raíces y perspectivas de su arquitectura (1999), Contemporary Brazilian Architecture (2003), in Portuguese and English, focusing on contemporary Brazil, and Arquitectura antillana del siglo XX (2003), on the Antillean architecture of the 20th century.Important studies of more specific topics related to the postindependence period include Graziano Gasparini and Juan Pedro Posani, Caracas a través de su arquitectura (1969), a comprehensive text that shows the evolution of Caracas up to 1969; Jorge Francisco Liernur, Arquitectura en la Argentina del siglo XX: la construcción de la modernidad (2001), a scholarly and comprehensive survey of 20th-century architecture in Argentina; Daniela Pastore (ed.), Argentina Architecture (1998), an anthology of texts examining developments during this period; Roberto Segre, La evolucion de la vivienda en Buenos Aires (1963–64), a survey of the evolution of housing in Buenos Aires, and Arquitectura y urbanismo de la revolución cubana (1989), a study of the architecture and urbanism of the Cuban Revolution; Federico Vegas, Venezuelan Vernacular (1985), a well-illustrated survey of small-town architecture in Venezuela; and Martín Vegas, Ramón Paolini, and Federico Vegas, Pueblos: Venezuela, 1979–1984 (1984), a survey of the urban architecture of small Venezuelan towns. A number of works treat individual architects and particular projects. These include Carlos Brillembourg, “Architecture and Sculpture: Villanueva and Calder's Aula Magna,” in Carlos Brillembourg (ed.), Latin American Architecture, 1929–1960: Contemporary Reflections (2004), pp. 60–73, an essay covering the collaboration of Carlos Raúl Villanueva and Alexander Calder in the design of the Aula Magna Theatre in the Central University of Caracas in 1952–54; Paolina Villanueva and Macía Pintó, Carlos Raul Villanueva (2000), an excellent monograph on this important architect; Stamo Papadaki, The Work of Oscar Niemeyer (1950), the first monograph in English on this noted architect, and Oscar Niemeyer: Works in Progress (1956), a follow-up to the earlier work; Amancio Williams, Amancio Williams (1990), a recent monograph on both the built and the unbuilt works by this experimental architect; Emilio Ambasz, The Architecture of Luis Barragán (1976), the catalog of an extraordinary exhibition organized by the Museum of Modern Art; and Federica Zanco (ed.), Luis Barragán: The Quiet Revolution (2001), a scholarly anthology that discusses the importance of Barragán's work in light of contemporary issues.Carlos F. Brillembourg

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