Docomomo Journal
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Tropical Modernity: A Hybrid-Construct in South China
Get PDFParallel to the discourse of Tropical Architecture and the work of UK architects in the British colonial territories in the Middle East, Africa, and India after the WWII, climate adaptation designs or devices such as brise-soleil, perforated cement bricks, sun shading screens, courtyards, etc., started to emerge in modernist buildings in Asia. This article is a preliminary survey of these cases in Hong Kong and Macau since the 1950s. It discusses how tropicality was used in response to the post-war revisionism of Modern Movement that placed emphasis on local identity and culture
Religious Tropical Architecture: the churches of Leandro V. Locsin in the Philippines
Get PDFThe focus of this contribution is on the importance of tropical architecture in the work of Leandro V. Locsin, in the context of post-WWII in Asia. Based in the Philippines, Locsin is immersed in the Christian tradition – the main religion of a country that was dominated by the Spanish crown from the mid 16th-century to 1898, and where the Catholic Church remains powerful across much of the archipelago today. Attention is focused on Locsin’s religious buildings and projects, where he succeeded in giving a new treatment to the tropical architecture of faith-based structures, through the integration of climate considerations and the reinterpretation of vernacular architecture of the Philippines
Reconstructing housing and communities: the INA-Casa Plan
Get PDFAmong the Italian initiatives for social and material reorganization in the aftermath of WWII, the most interesting was undoubtedly the INA-Casa Plan. The plan was designed to counteract widespread unemployment in the construction sector and aimed to provide new and modern social housing to the poorer classes, thus simultaneously responding to the housing emergency. During the 14 years between 1949 and 1963, architects designed, and construction companies built a housing patrimony of remarkable quality, which now becomes an opportunity to develop strategies of urban revitalization
Casa Fullana: a model for modern living in the tropics
Get PDFCasa Fullana [Fullana House], built in 1955 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, is an exemplary model of Henry Klumb’s (1905-1984) design principles for modern living in the tropics. German architect Henry Klumb conducted a prolific architectural practice in Puerto Rico, producing some of the most iconic examples of tropical modernism in the Caribbean. His work, most notably at the University of Puerto Rico (1946-1966) (UPR) and in landmark projects like the San Martin de Porres Church (1948) in Cataño, constituted a breakthrough in Puerto Rican, Caribbean and Latin American architecture. Anchored in the principles of modern architecture, specifically of an organic architecture put forward by his mentor Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), Klumb’s work is deeply rooted in the specificities of the landscape, topography, and climate of Puerto Rico as a tropical island
The Ur-Forms of Modernism. On 19th Century Hospitalized and Hygienic Dimensions of Architecture
Get PDFDuring the 19th century, a shift in the meaning of the notion of type took place, accompanied by the idea of an explicit inscription of habits and needs in space. A new correlation between the architectural type and the habitual was established. If only tentatively, esthetics and planning could now be harmoniously reunited through the introduction of new habits in order to generate a collective way of living. As a result, the object of architecture became to moralize and to reform. The “dream” of this period was that of a purely technological solution for civil building and housing. It would further expand into the vision of the exact partitioning of living space, and of the invention of perfect machines for healing, controlling, and living. In fact, two genealogies began to merge: total sanitariness, which led to the exact quantification of fluids piped into buildings; and total technology, which aimed, through the use of new materials, at the precise programing and optimization of space. Underlying the thousands of proposals in the 19th century, the idea of the circulation of goods and people was crucial, and dependent on the imperatives of mobility and decentralization. Traces of such “dream architecture” remained in the form of the features that would become an intrinsic part of 20th century, modern architecture
Hôpital Edouard Herriot à Lyon, Tony Garnier, 1933
No full textAt a time when Lyon celebrates the one hundred and fifty years of the birth of one of the most famous architects of the beginning of the 20th century, Tony Garnier (1869-1948), the observation of the conservation of the works of the designer of the Cité industrielle (1917) is very disturbing. Garnier’s heritage remains extremely fragile and the protection measures are insufficient. Several complexes and buildings have been destroyed and disfigured, for example the Abattoirs de la Mouche in Gerland (Lyon, 1909-1914) that were demolished in 1974. The large hall of the market has been preserved and transformed into a performance hall. Although the Édouard-Herriot hospital (1913-1933) has benefited from the protection of the perimeter of its chapel since 1967, its monumental fireplaces were demolished in 2001 for security reasons and, more recently, the Pavilion H has been destroyed in 2015 with indifference for the construction of a new 18,000 m2 building, designed according to François Chatillon’s (1961-) plans and delivered in 2017
Housing for the greatest number
Get PDFAddressing a broader vision, entitled “Housing for All”, this issue is dedicated to the welfare era, when governments across the world established ambitious housing programs to provide housing for the greatest number and improve the citizens’ living conditions, as a symbol of a modern and democratic society. This bold course of action involved radical changes in the built environment, through new approaches to architectural design and experiments in the use of materials and techniques, the creation of space, and social transformation. Nowadays, understanding how to deal with this legacy presents a major challenge, in a continuously changing context, from the technical obsolescence of buildings that no longer meet today’s demanding standards, or fast-moving sociocultural, political and economic values. The aim of this docomomo Journal 65 is to outline how these vast cultural and political ambitions were materialized in various countries, and to analyze the contemporary challenges they face. More than five decades later, are these buildings and neighborhoods resilient or obsolete? In addition to the changes that postmodern society has brought in ways of living, issues such as the demand for spatial and functional transformation, and the updating of regulations on fire, seismic stability, user safety and energy efficiency, are now part of the contemporary agenda. How can these sites be kept alive while satisfying sustainability and contemporary ideas of comfort
Vegaviana, a colonization village: the rural “naturalness and simplicity” of modern Spanish heritage
No full textThe Instituto Nacional de Colonización built a series of villages all over Spain to support farmers who were working on the newly established irrigated lands. Vegaviana, which was projected by the architect José Luis Fernández del Amo, stands out among the almost 300 villages that were constructed, becoming a referent for INC colonization and also in modern Spanish architecture. Firstly, a brief contextual review is presented. Secondly, the emphasis is put on Vegaviana, and its presence in international contexts is analyzed, highlighting its outstanding low-cost design with local materials. This essay ends with a review from the current perspective
Cure and care at the cradle of innovation
Get PDF“Illness is the night-side of life” tying one’s up in its own body and weaknesses leading either to curative or care spaces that instead of bringing hope bring to mind loneliness and death. Even if the tendency is to believe in the efficiency of medical processes, the collective memory of healthcare buildings is related to discomfort. Ill bodies enter a machine where they are homogenized, losing autonomy and privacy. Intimacy is exposed in a public domain. In healthcare buildings the focus is on medical procedure and not on the prostrate body, which is the real origin and dimensional parameter of these space
Modern Hospitals and Cultural Heritage
Get PDFThe decades between 1950 and 1980 mark the heydays of modern hospital architecture. It represents an ideal merger between Modernism and medicine and a highly specific approach to health and illness as medical qualities. Since the 1990s, public health experts have recognized that aspects that have been discarded both by medicine and by modern architecture should be re-integrated in all policies that target health: the modern hospital has become a relic of the past. This essay is a plea to incorporate the changing views on health and illness in the value assessment of the modern hospital