
18 modernist homes in South America
This site contains affiliate links. I may earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you.
As modernist structure concepts and rules travelled the world because the model’s emergence within the Twenties, recent and thrilling types of structure began showing in new territories, past the motion’s birthplace in Europe (you possibly can take our tour of lesser-known modernist homes in Europe for extra). Considered one of these locations was South America, the place native architects enchanted the entire world with their expressive and flamboyant types and regional interpretations of the style.
It was not till the late Thirties that South American nations made their mark within the structure world with their tackle modernism, whose dynamic growth adopted financial and cultural transformations of South American nations which, throughout the Twenties until the Nineteen Sixties, emancipated themselves on the worldwide stage. Structure, in addition to artwork, music and literature, grew to become instruments for creating a brand new id for younger and impressive nations.
(Picture credit score: Adam Štěch)
Brazil quickly emerged as a world chief within the discipline. With a brand new era of architects from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, together with Oscar Niemeyer, Affonso Reidy, Alvaro Important Brazil, Rino Levi, Villanova Artigas and others, the nation quickly cemented its influential place, as confirmed by the legendary exhibition Brazil Builds at MoMA in New York in 1943. The mix of contemporary structural constructing strategies, placing sculptural kinds and emotive areas fascinated the worldwide structure group. Brazilian modernism – celebrated on pages of seminal publications and books after the Second World Conflict – discovered its signature model. From then on, modernist South American structure has come into the general public highlight.
Jorge Zalszupin Guarujá Seaside Home Guarujá, Brazil 1972
(Picture credit score: Adam Štěch)
Past Brazil, architectural expression flourished in different nations of the area too. Argentina grew to become one of many richest nations on this planet, creating a mature modernist model because the late Thirties with the assistance of Catalan, Le Corbusier-trained architect Antonio Bonet Castellana, who produced distinctive work there and in Uruguay till he returned to Spain within the Nineteen Sixties.
Venezuela additionally arrived on the world stage with its superior structure throughout the Nineteen Fifties. Caracas (take a tour of Caracas’ modernist gems for extra) grew to become a centre of modernist concepts. Architects reminiscent of Carlos Raúl Villanueva, Tomás Sanabria, Ján Górecki, Fruto Vivas and plenty of others, reworked the town by means of surprising and dramatic constructions, which had been celebrated by editors of prestigious magazines of the time, together with Domus in Italy or L’Structure d’Aujourd’hui in France.
Hop on our tour of 18 lesser-known modernist homes in South America
Casa Victoria Ocampo , Argentina
(Picture credit score: Adam Štěch)
Modernist structure flourished in lots of extra South American nations – though maybe in a extra discreet means, which was lesser identified on a worldwide scale. Architects in nations reminiscent of Ecuador, Peru or Chile produced a large, unique and genuine physique of labor, fairly often connecting their native cultural background with worldwide influences in an unique means. An exhibition titled Latin America in Development: Structure 1955-1980 and held at MoMA ten years in the past, highlighted their inventive aptitude.
For this survey, we selected 18 lesser-known non-public homes from a few of these South American nations, demonstrating the extent of progress and high quality of modernist structure manufacturing on this fascinating area.
Argentina
Alberto Córsico Piccolini, Household Home
(Picture credit score: Adam Štěch)
Alberto Córsico Piccolini
Household Home
Mar del Plata, Argentina
Thirties
Alberto Corsico Piccolini was one of many first modernist architects to start constructing within the Argentinian metropolis of Mar del Plata, reworking it right into a glamorous vacation resort throughout the Thirties. Like his contemporaries, Córsico Piccolini was influenced by modernism, Artwork Deco and Streamline Moderne, as seen on this corner-site home.
Alejandro Bustillo, Casa Victoria Ocampo
(Picture credit score: Adam Štěch)
Alejandro Bustillo
Casa Victoria Ocampo
Buenos Aires, Argentina
1928
Impressed by the rationalist concepts of Le Corbusier, architect Alejandro Bustillo exchanged his French neo-classical model for modernism and designed Casa Victoria Ocampo in Buenos Aires as one of many very first homes on this model in Argentina. Victoria Ocampo was the founding father of the journal Sur, which promoted literary works by essential Argentinian and worldwide authors. At present the home is open to the general public as a museum.
Antonio Bonet Castellana, Casa Oks
(Picture credit score: Adam Štěch)
Antonio Bonet Castellana
Casa Oks
Martínez, Argentina
1953–57
Casa Oks, within the unique suburb of Martínez on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, might be the best of Spanish architect Antonio Bonet Castellana’s residential initiatives in Argentina. He designed it on the finish of his South American journey as a three-dimensional metal grid with glass partitions and open-air terraces.
Walter Loos, Lienau Patio Home
(Picture credit score: Adam Štěch)
Walter Loos
Lienau Patio Home
Mar del Plata, Argentina
1943
Walter Loos started his profession within the late Twenties after graduating from the College of Utilized Arts in Vienna. In 1939 he emigrated to Argentina, the place he efficiently continued his pre-war avant-garde work. He arrange a studio with Max Thurn in 1941 and continued to design residential initiatives. Lienau Patio Home in Mar del Plata is certainly one of Loos’s early Argentinian designs.
Brazil
Flávio de Carvalho, Row Home
Flávio de Carvalho Row Home
(Picture credit score: Adam Štěch)
Flávio de Carvalho
Row Home
São Paulo, Brazil
Thirties
The versatile character of designer, artist, architect, theorist and thinker Flávio de Carvalho performed an essential position within the emergence of the Brazilian avant-garde. From the Twenties onwards, this non-conformist mental promoted experimental artwork kinds and an unconventional and free lifestyle. His few architectural realizations embody a row of residential homes with robust modernist and Artwork Deco influences, which he realized within the Thirties. Just one home, which right this moment is residence to the artwork gallery Casa SP-arte, has survived.
Rino Levi, Residência Clemente Gomes
(Picture credit score: Adam Štěch)
Rino Levi
Residência Clemente Gomes
São Paulo, Brazil
1963
Architect and pioneer of Brazilian modernism Rino Levi utilized his distinctive imaginative and prescient for indoor areas and their relationship to their environment to residential initiatives together with the Casa Milton Guper Residence in São Paulo and Casa Olivo Gomes in São José dos Campos. Their spacious linear construction, disappearing into the plush tropical panorama, can also be discovered within the little-known Casa Clemente Gomes, constructed round enclosed atriums and gardens with landscaping by Roberto Burle Marx.
Jorge Zalszupin, Guarujá Seaside Home
(Picture credit score: Adam Štěch)
Jorge Zalszupin
Guarujá Seaside Home
Guarujá, Brazil
1972
Outdoors Brazil, Polish-born Jorge Zalszupin is probably greatest generally known as a furnishings designer, however he has additionally designed a number of buildings, together with the large-scale Paulista-style administrative buildings in São Paulo, in addition to a sequence of vernacular-style vacation homes in Guarujá, together with his personal summer season home, characterised by freeform natural kinds.
Hans Broos, Casa Broos
Hans Broos Casa Broos São Paulo, Brazil 1971–78
(Picture credit score: Adam Štěch)
Hans Broos
Casa Broos
São Paulo, Brazil
1971–78
In 1971, Brazilian architect Hans Broos started to construct a studio and home within the residential district of Morumbi, São Paulo. This architect of German descent was one of many distinguished practitioners of the Paulista College. Tough concrete surfaces, substantial volumes and progressive use of sunshine characterize the home he constructed for himself, which has sadly been deteriorating since his loss of life. The legendary panorama architect Roberto Burle Marx collaborated with Broos on the venture, not solely designing a wild terraced backyard for the home but in addition creating distinctive components inside, together with the hearth and a hidden bar cupboard, approaching the design as an summary sculpture.
Uruguay
Julio Vilamajó, Casa Vilamajó
Julio Vilamajó Casa Vilamajó Montevideo, Uruguay 1930
(Picture credit score: Adam Štěch)
Julio Vilamajó
Casa Vilamajó
Montevideo, Uruguay
1930
Defying categorisation, the work of architect Julio Vilamajó is a mix of European and native influences with many alternative sources of inspiration, put collectively in a extremely private means. Probably the most placing instance of his unique model is his personal home, which he accomplished in 1930. Vilamajó travelled to Europe and North Africa within the early Twenties and studied Arabic structure, and its affect will be seen in his own residence. In contrast to a few of his friends, the architect by no means denied decoration and right here created an surprising venture during which a radical spatial conception is united with delicate ornamental particulars, Deco-influenced furnishings and beneficiant open interiors.
Antonio Bonet Castellana, La Gallarda
(Picture credit score: Adam Štěch)
Antonio Bonet Castellana
La Gallarda
Punta del Este, Uruguay
1945
Antonio Bonet Castellana constructed this one-storey residence in Punta del Este for the well-known Spanish author Rafael Alberti. The constructing shows architectural options typical of the time, and a modernist format is mixed with native supplies and a vernacular look. The dynamism of the sloping roofs provides rhythm to the entire construction.
Ricardo Gomara, Home in Playa Brava
(Picture credit score: Adam Štěch)
Ricardo Gomara
Home in Playa Brava
Punta del Este, Uruguay
1982
Positioned in Punta del Este, this single-family home was in-built 1982 by Argentinian architect Ricardo Gomara. Nestled in mild grass hills near the seaside, the home options placing horizontal concrete volumes evoking the work of American architects John Lautner or Paul Rudolph.
Rodolfo López Rey, Residencia Poyo Roc
(Picture credit score: Adam Štěch)
Rodolfo López Rey
Residencia Poyo Roc
Punta del Este, Uruguay
1964
In 1963, Rodolfo López Rey was awarded a scholarship and travelled to Italy to review on the Milan Polytechnic, the place he met essential personalities within the native architectural scene, together with Ernesto Rogers. After his return to Montevideo, he constructed a number of distinctive homes in Punta del Este, together with the expansive Poyo Roc home with a big cover, spiral staircase and hand-crafted particulars such because the typography and signal on the door.
Ecuador
Karl Kohn, Casa Kohn
(Picture credit score: Adam Štěch)
Karl Kohn
Casa Kohn
Quito, Ecuador
1951
Architect Karl Kohn emigrated from Prague, the place he ran a profitable structure studio together with his brother Otto earlier than the Second World Conflict. Kohn and his spouse Vera settled within the Mariscal district. He designed dozens of personal residences throughout the Nineteen Fifties. He mixed Prague’s functionalist expertise with particular components responding to the brand new cultural and climatic surroundings of Ecuador. Undoubtedly, his most essential venture was the creation of his personal Casa Kohn that the architect inaugurated in 1951 within the presence of the previous President of Ecuador, Gala Plaza.
Gustavo and Diego Guayasamín, Casa Guayasamín
(Picture credit score: Adam Štěch)
Gustavo and Diego Guayasamín
Casa Guayasamín
Quito, Ecuador
Nineteen Seventies
Quito’s typical fashionable vernacular structure will be seen within the former studio and residence of Ecuador’s legendary artist Oswaldo Guayasamín. His home and atelier, constructed within the Nineteen Seventies by Gustavo and Diego Guayasamín, interpreted colonial haciendas in a brand new means. The home is now open as a museum and guests can discover not solely Guayasamín’s work but in addition the genuine areas the place he hosted and painted portraits of celebrities, artists, and politicians from all around the world.
Juan Espinoza and Rodrigo Samaniego, Casa Miravelle
(Picture credit score: Adam Štěch)
Juan Espinoza and Rodrigo Samaniego
Casa Miravelle
Quito, Ecuador
Nineteen Sixties
The Nineteen Sixties vernacular tendencies in Ecuador, which opposed strict common theories of Worldwide Model, had been practised primarily by a collective of architects referred to as Grupo 6, together with Juan Espinoza, Rodrigo Samaniego Rubén Moreira, Mario Solis, and Fernando Jaramillo. One instance of their work is Casa Miravelle, which was constructed by Juan Espinoza and Rodrigo Samaniego and with its vaulted roofs and brickwork resembles Le Corbusier‘s Maisons Jaoul in Paris.
Venezuela
Ján Górecki, Casa Gómez Ribeiro
(Picture credit score: Adam Štěch)
Ján Górecki
Casa Gómez Ribeiro
Caracas, Venezuela
1957
Born in Saint Petersburg in Russia, architect Ján Górecki constructed tons of of personal homes in Caracas throughout the Nineteen Fifties and Nineteen Sixties. His homes, together with the one for J. Gómez Ribeiro within the Altamira neighbourhood, are characterised by dynamic shapes, round air flow openings, angled roofs and fairly often used expressive curves. Inside playful layouts and architectural particulars will be discovered.
Carlos Raúl Villanueva, Casa Caoma
(Picture credit score: Adam Štěch)
Carlos Raúl Villanueva
Casa Caoma
Caracas, Venezuela
1953
Carlos Raúl Villanueva was essentially the most prolific architect of Venezuela‘s postwar modernist motion. His college campus in Caracas is a celebrated instance of the synthesis of all arts in a posh venture. Authentic drawings and paperwork of this essential fee are nonetheless held by Villanueva‘s daughter at his unique residence, Caoma Residence, accomplished in 1953. An unique dwelling, designed as a synthesis of conventional colonial homes and functionalism, it nonetheless hides valuable items by the lies of Charlotte Perriand and Alexander Calder.
Fruto Vivas, Quinta Zaira
(Picture credit score: Adam Štěch)
Fruto Vivas
Quinta Zaira
Caracas, Venezuela
1956
Celebrated for his placing hyperbolic roof of Membership Táchira, architect Fruto Vivas additionally constructed many non-public homes within the Nineteen Fifties and Nineteen Sixties, all outlined by a synthesis of vernacular components, use of native supplies, and daring development components and spatial options, as demonstrated in his Quinta Zaira.