Learning from Latin America

JOSÉ LUIS URIBE

In 2010, the exhibition Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement presented eleven projects1 and buildings located on the five continents. The exhibit was curated by Andres Lepik and showcased architecture that promoted a new way of inhabiting the built environment in peripheral and marginalized communities. The design and construction processes on show were developed through collaborative work between the architects and the residents, who identify themselves as articulating a process of social, economic, and political transformation that begins with small-scale works. Part of the exhibition press release states:

In addition to new modes of participatory design, the projects on display incorporate pioneering site-specific ecological and socially sustainable practices, including the exploration of both new and traditional materials. Populations that have previously rarely enjoyed the attention of architects are engaged in designs incorporating innovation worthy of the broadest attention. The renewed commitment of these architects and many of their colleagues to socially responsible architecture is reminiscent of the ideals of twentieth-century masters, but these designers eschew their predecessors’ utopian, wholesale blueprints for change imposed from above. Small Scale, Big Change presents radically pragmatic, “acupunctural” projects—limited interventions with wide-reaching effects.2

Reviewing the selection of works reveals a group of architects with a shared focus on formulating an architecture based on locally developed techniques as an operating logic in a context characterized by vulnerability and shortage. They establish an image of the architect as someone who articulates social change by means of a collaborative process based on artisan construction techniques, promoting low-tech architecture that acknowledges traditional building practices as a technical reference point.

Four years later, a similar approach was taken in the exhibition The Architect Is Present at the Museo ICO, Madrid, curated by Luis Fernán- dez-Galiano. This exhibit brought together five international studios whose works pursue the objective of meeting societal needs while making best possible use of available resources.3 The interest of the exhibition was focused on the value of humble and noble materials such as clay, bamboo, timber, and ceramic, which form part of an architecture that promotes a future based on local construction techniques. In the curator’s own words:

This exhibition presents the work of five influential international studios that have made austerity their ethical and aesthetic reference point. Covering the five continents, these young architects work in marginalized settings and demonstrate that limited resources can serve as a stimulus for technical invention and community participation, and the foundation of a responsible architecture where the vocation of service does not exclude beauty and emotion.4 nial (held in Spain); the symposium Latitudes, Architecture in the Americas (U.S.); and the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (U.S.). Each of these formats for dissemination and reflection on Latin American architecture share a common element in the practice of studios and collectives that ten years ago were considered emerging, such as a77, Argentina; Plan:b Arquitectos, Colombia; Al Borde, Ecuador; Lab.Pro.Fab, Venezuela; Lukas Fúster, Paraguay; and others. In this regard, the cover of the magazine C3 no. 295, South Korea, 2009, eloquently portrays the process of territorial change Latin America is undergoing, with an issue dedicated to Medellín and Talca. These contrasting contexts offer, on the one hand, an account of a generation of emerging Colombian architects and, on the other, the formulation of an innovative academic model based on practice. In both cases, we recognize the construction of a territory and a focus on the architectural project associated with the public sphere.

Both exhibitions portray themes of shared interest among a specific group of contemporary architects, which opens up the discussion to the social purpose of architecture and the return of artisan values to construction taking place in marginalized contexts.

The above suggests that in the past twenty years, political circumstances and economic crises have oriented the contemporary architectural scene towards underserved contexts, promoting work that emerges in contexts of scarcity and is articulated by its abundant material resources. This condition has been examined in numerous publications, exhibitions, and conferences in the Global North that have focused on the Latin American condition of a post-crisis architecture. Reviews we could mention include: AV Monografías no. 138 (Latin America 2010-Spain 2009); A+U no. 532 (Latin America); 25 Projects (Japan, 2015); and Harvard Design Magazine no. 34 (U.S., 2011).

Latin America is progressively defining a new architectural narrative, one that is guided by the impact of craftsmanship as an active part of buildings that foster public habitats. An architecture on the margins has emerged, articulated through small initiatives led by various architecture laboratories that have worked with communities, adding to debate around Latin America’s contribution to the contemporary condition of architecture.

During the eleventh Ibero-American Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism, I had the opportunity to interview eighteen architects, publishers, and critics involved in the contemporary Latin American architectural scene. In a hotel room in the historic downtown area of Asunción, Paraguay, each of them answered a single question: “What does Latin America bring to the contemporary condition of architecture?”5