The South American tour is over and Asia is in sight. So with a total of 17 hours of flight time to kill, it's an opportune time to compile notes and images. From here on out, it will be just one blog, one that merges more academic pursuits with more personal impressions. Or, that's the intent.
Following Brazil, my travels took me down to Argentina, then west over the Andes and up the western edge of South America. Approximately one week, a very short time, was spent in each country. It’s a different way to travel; there is always a lot more to see and less time to acquire an in depth understanding of a place. Still, these quick portraits provide a crucial supplement to a broader cultural perspective of Latin America.
As I traveled beyond Brazil, it became clear very quickly that many countries in South America suffer similar social, economic and political issues. In that respect, it is difficult not to be redundant about some of these characteristics. On the other hand, each country and city possesses a unique identity from which these conditions arise and that contribute to how something is or is not expressed in the form of architecture and urbanism.
ARGENTINA
Flying over northwestern Argentina is like flying over Nebraska; one sees an immense grid penciled across the landscape, plotting agricultural property, webs of urbanity and all that space between. Though it resembles Midwestern America, this landscape lacks some compositional rigidity. Also, in place of a shotgun Main Street slicing through downtown, one finds an equally distributed grid with one or several voids dispersed around center of the town. It is an urbanity organized around property management, political space and public space. It is the townscape of the Laws of the Indies, of Spanish colonization.
There are exceptions, particularly within the more challenging Andean landscapes, but many of towns and old city centers in Spanish-speaking Latin America are organized according to the Laws of the Indies. Mendoza, a small horizontal town in northwestern Argentina, just west of the Andes, is one such example. Mendoza is laid out on a simple grid, with Plaza Indepencia, and four secondary squares a few blocks beyond this, creating a solid-void checkerboard pattern. Further out from the center, the grid remains fairly consistent, with a few adjustments related to topographical variation. Beyond the town proper is the famous wine-producing agricultural region; the edge of the city quietly dissolves into this landscape. Though large, it feels like a slow-moving town, focused on its Malbecs. In other words, the homogenizing affects of globalization are relatively minimal, especially when compared to a city like Buenos Aires.
Due to a variety of historic and geographic circumstances, including Argentina’s relative isolation in terms of Spanish conquest, Buenos Aires has a rich collection of European influenced architecture. From Italian, French Neoclassical, Art Nouveau and modernism, the capital has it all. In the second half of the 19th century, the city modernized with a network of broad avenues not to different than Baron Georges-Eugène Haussman’s avenues constructed in Paris around the same period. As a result, the formal organization of the city is an exception among others in South America, like its architecture.
Contemporary urban development is continuing to change the face of Buenos Aires, particularly along the waterfront just east of downtown. This area, known as Puerto Madero is home to several international business regional headquarters, mixed-use developments including strips of new brick buildings made to resemble industrial building, and a new Calatrava bridge spanning the still-polluted Rio de la Plata. It’s a relatively new area, still under construction and the homogenizing affects of globalization rule the development; the view from TGIFriday’s is an anonymous steel and glass office building, LG I think (the most Argentinean restaurant sits down the river a couple of lochs - Siga la Vaca (‘Follow the Cow’), a steakhouse where one can find everything from crumbly blood sausage to rubbery intestine).
Of course, the argument for a more authentic Argentinean architecture could be made, but in preserving the round-the-clock occupation of a downtown area, this development outperforms the financial-district urbanism clearing out city centers across the world, including America. And still, while visiting the neighborhood, I wondered what Argentineans actually frequent this environment. Or is this development simply maintaining Buenos Aires’ position as a uniquely international city among characteristically Latin American ones? In one or two hundred years, will Puerto Madero acquire the same scale of appeal that historic neighborhoods such as La Boca, Recoleta, and San Telmo have? (And when will they jail that strange man?)
PERU
The most popular tourist site in South America is Machu Picchu, and it is easy to see why. The Incan ruin sits atop a lush, mountain shard at the edge of the jungle just outside of the high Andes and the city of Cusco, once the center of the Incan empire. The combination of archaeological ruin and natural landscape is astonishing. Among all the ruins in northwestern South American, this is the one not to be missed. It is at once an ancient and modern symbol of Peru; a newly elected “Wonder of the World.” The exponential increase in popularity of the site in the past decade has ensured tourism as one of the country’s principle treasures attracting international interest.
Peru has long been appealing because of its known crafts, culture and ruins. In fact, Dwell magazine just published an article on Lima, Peru’s capital, hoping to find something of contemporary architectural movement, but only finding remnants of the past and a few isolated contemporary buildings. There is an open-ended chasm between Spanish colonial architecture and the present. Certainly the city is built up, with over nine million inhabitants in the metropolitan area, and there are simple modern buildings dotted around the city, but there is no identifiable establishment of a uniquely Peruvian contemporary architecture. If anything, one sees the homogenizing affects of globalization as architecture more than a new language.
Miraflores, Lima’s most popular tourist center and (supposed) new cultural center, is a neighborhood like many others in the world. It features all the Starbucks, McDonald’s, KFC, and so on that these centers typically do, while steel and glass hotels rise among shopping centers and international restaurants. Perhaps Miraflores is the new Lima, but it’s the old form of the anonymous international city.
In Lima’s downtown, one can still find traces of the icons of globalization everyone is familiar with, but they adapt to Spanish colonial structures and classical buildings built over the past three centuries. The signs of globalization hide in nooks and niches, around the corner from major attractions like Plaza das Armas. Nothing is destroyed, but then nothing has really evolved. These colonial centers are static, like objects in a museum – artifacts of cultures abandoned or cultures deceased. Still, one cannot help but imagine a new evolution, one in which the architectural languages are not simply catalogued, but are rediscovered and challenged. For example, one could reinterpret the rich wooden balconies suspended off mute stone facades, breaking the wall of the street space. Or perhaps a new ornamental richness could be developed in new building façades, one comparable in textural complexity to the Moorish Baroque churches downtown. Further still, the masonry craft found in Incan temples could be renewed in light of new architectural experiences.
The potential for new architectural explorations is obvious, but realization is a challenge. Again and as in Brazil, there is an issue with the separation of social classes and the isolation of contemporary architecture away from the public realm. What remains to be seen is how Peru will develop architecturally as money enters its economy through both tourism and natural resources and what affect this will also have on the socio-economic landscape.
ECUADOR
The geography surrounding Quito, the capital of Ecuador, is a welcome retreat from the flat, brown and dry landscape of Lima. The city rests in a long thin valley, over 9,000 feet about sea level; altitude sickness is not uncommon for foreigners (coca leaves are employed as a natural remedy in the form of tea, candy or just the raw stuff – chew on it and your gums go numb!). A small hump, atop of which rises a grandiose gothic cathedral, separates the colonial Old Town and the modern, and touristy center, Mariscal.
The Old Town is a fully functioning collection of historic Spanish structures built directly on top of Incan ruins, which in turn were built directly on top of Pre-Incan ruins. Recent studies by the Quitsato research team, suggest that a peculiar east-west alignment of churches in this area share a relationship with the country’s pre-colonial history. This line, established by Pre-Incan societies now beneath the colonial churches, is parallel to the equator just a few miles outside the city. Other Pre-Incan structures notate the actual equatorial line (not to be confused with the French’s monument which is apparently incorrect according to contemporary GPS technology) and have been found to correspond to one another. Thus, a large-scale settlement pattern, designed in relation to solar phenomena and topographical relationships, appears to have been established by Pre-Incan civilizations many centuries ago.
Current development is an entirely new history. In the central area and to the north, the hillsides are filled with staggered massive colorful condo development. Mariscal is a collection of plain structures and tourist traps. To the south is the poorer region, like the periphery of other South American cities. Besides the string of social and political issues of the aforementioned countries, Ecuador also faces the ongoing threat of more than 19 volcanoes. In fact, one volcano, Guagua Pichincha (which I climbed!) is actually immediately adjacent to Quito and erupted recently in 1999, covering the city in a thin veil of ash. (During my visit, another volcano in the city of Banos erupted, whose plume of smoke could be seen right out my window during the flight between Lima and Quito.)
Over time, Ecuador’s architectural identity will likely emerge out of their ability to cope with seismic issues and reconstruction as well as addressing the usual social difficulties. However, one potential path for Ecuador and Quito in particular might include the intentional layering of a new, contemporary architecture related to the country’s ongoing exploration of its cultural identity. The country is at a great advantage, with a very rich and well-preserved cultural history to draw from.
COLOMBIA
After the Andes pass through Peru and Ecaudor, they run along the western edge of Colombia before falling into the Carribean. The Pacific lies to the west of the Andes and the llanos, or plains, stretch east into Venezuela. Jungles are scattered everywhere throughout the country and this is one reference for the country’s division: between the revolutionary forces that live in the jungle and everyone else.
Since the middle of the 20th century, Colombia has been challenged by political and social unrest. The assassination of liberal presidential candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán led to the eruption of tensions between opposing political parties. They formed an alliance in an attempt at a resolution, but still found themselves divided. Meanwhile, various revolutionary forces were organizing to fight the government. These groups initially formed by young intellectuals with ‘good’ intentions fell from grace. With little or no money, they formed alliances with drug cartels and over time found their organizations fully corrupt. Many got out and work in Colombian government today, but this also means many politicians have some tie to guerrilla or paramilitary groups.
The struggle between political parties, revolutionaries and drug cartels has more or less left Colombia crippled following World War II to the present day and thus, globalization in Colombia is always in the context of this ongoing battle. As such, it is difficult to discern whether the influences of globalization push inward, as they do in other South American countries, or if the nation actually extends outward as an intentional act aimed at its own dissolution.
The city, whose quantity of masonry construction appears to surpass that of Boston, is intensely red. Bricks are everywhere, including informal construction, simple modern buildings, historical structures, and new contemporary design. Furthermore, architects like Rogelio Salmona developed a contemporary architecture dedicated to the material and detailing, as in the Biblioteca Publica Virgilio Barco. Overall, Bogotá gives the impression of an architecturally rich feeling, one not found in other South America cities. Yet just like any other large South American city, Bogotá has a great deal of social issues, including insufficient housing and infrastructure. Considering its mass, combined with the aforementioned issues, the city can only move so quickly at addressing these problems. Yet, there are organizations attempting to assist those in need, particularly in Bogotá’s eastern periphery.
Un Techo Para Mi Pai, literally “A Roof For My Country”, is an organization that seeks to improve the lives of various Latin American communities through the construction of housing and social programs. Simultaneously, it attempts to tie the lives of young adults outside of these communities to the realities their countries face through a volunteer program. It operates in nine countries total stretching from Central America to South America, including Colombia. It was the last day, the celebration, when I arrived in Bogotá and a friend of mine took me to see the project and how the program works.
The site, in the south of Bogotá, is generally where the poorer populations live, often illegally, but as part of a common process (as in Brazil, the land is ‘loaned’ by the city until it either requests the land back, is purchased by the settler). Individuals were selected in this particular neighborhood for new houses and to form a community organization. National and international companies are solicited for materials, architecture students design the temporary structure and volunteers (sometimes the same students) construct the house. They houses are cheaply constructed and not necessarily pretty, but they provide the basic protection the family needs. As the family and community grow, Techo offers more opportunities for future development. The two grow symbiotically.
In terms of the structure, or building, the basic idea is that one lives in an informal, poorly constructed shack prior to being chosen. They are then offered a period of opportunity with the temporary structure with the expectation that they will eventually acquire a permanent residence. The photo below illustrates the three stages of this process – informal shack, formal 10-year house, permanent masonry house.
Lastly, and the most difficult, is the social formation of the community. Revolutionary forces control many of these poor neighborhoods. In this case, a para-military group controls the area. Any opposition to their control, be it through city police or volunteer organizations, is a threat to their power. As a result, they sometimes react and through intimidation and violence discourage the formal organization of communities. Techo and community leaders have been directly affected.
In Colombia, public and private space is politically charged. Be it new, poorer communities, as in the neighborhood described above, institutions such Universidad Nacional de Colombia or the historical plazas like Plaza de Bolivar, these spaces always function as both a measuring device and stage for the country’s social milieu.
SOCIAL-ANTHROPOLOGICAL ARCHITECTURE
There is a thread of logic, accessible through the domain of social anthropology, which has been found particularly appropriate for the understanding and response to social issues in South American countries. The entire continent is unique in its investigation and application of this realm of knowledge, to the extent that even the built environment has been strongly informed by it, as in the case of Brazil’s modern architectural movement. Successful or not, the future of South American architecture lies in the ability of these societies to address their social issues and find architectural expression through the logic of social anthropology. If successful, there is an opportunity for an entirely new string of rationalist architecture, an advance beyond the failures of socialism, the obsoleteness of colonialism and the banalities of globalization.
