Indigenous Contemporary Architecture
When we talk about Indigenous Architecture in common language, it takes into account Australia, Canada, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Sapmi, Samoa, Fiji, United States, the Philippines and other countries where Indigenous people have a built tradition or aspire translate or to have their cultures translated in the built environment. As we can see, the Latin American peoples are not evocated. That is why it could be important to have a look on this and try to participate to an Indigenous architectural identity in Latin America.
1Claudio Caveri
Claudio Caveri, is a rebellious and eccentric architect who dedicated his entire life to designing edifices that faithfully reflected his spiritual and ideological values. He was born on 9 March 1928 in Buenos Aires to a middle-class family, son of a well-known architect.
He felt a great allegiance to the core values of the Peronist party, such as he graduated in 1950 from the State University of Architecture and Urbanism, which was founded only three years earlier as an initiative under the Populist government of Juan Domingo Peron to encourage social projects.
His second built project, Casa Urtizberea took inspiration of Frank Lloyd Wright's breaking the box philosopy (creating a more fluid relationship throughout etween interior and exterior spaces). He also has heavily been influenced by Le Corbusier. With this porject, Caveri began to experiment the idea of creating organic hospitable environments with a sense of purpose for real people.
Also, Caveri constantly referenced the thinker Rodolfo Kusch, who argued that America was the land of miscegenation. He was often considered as a rationalist or a brutalist but he actually favoured rudimentary and organic materials inspired by the domestic white houses found in Italy, Greece, Spain and nothern provinces of Argentina.
To conclude, Caveri began a thinking of a cultural or arhcitectural identity, taking into consideration a lot of colonialist references but also some Argentinean references. It is not yet a work dedicated to Indigenous Architecture, such as even the thought process is referenced by Eastern thinkers, architects or philosophers.
Troubleshoot the local identity raised or a return to historical roots from a modern perspective, combining a synthesis of influential names: the brutalism of Le Corbusier, the colonial tradition and the organic spatiality of the building. This mixture of trends converged with the changes of the Catholic liturgical renewal.
Fatima Church is developing a central temple of the cross party, in the central space it is bordered by a pyramid of large bricks.
This work constitutes the culmination of an ephemeral flow architecture of Argentina which presents itself as a “white house”.
In the context of architecture in Argentina in the 1950s in Delad and early 1960s, with a movement representing a reaction against the generalization of the international style, which submits a language inspired by vernacular architectural traditions, especially in austerity of the colonial architecture of the Argentine territory.
2Severiano Mário Porto
Severiano Mário Porto was born in Uberlândia in 1930, and at the age of five, he moved with his family to Rio de Janeiro. He died the 10 December 2020 because of Coronavirus.
In 1954 he graduated from the National Faculty of Architecture, University of Brazil. All of his work was awarded in 1985 by the Buenos Aires International Architecture Biennale.
In 1987, he was internationally recognized, being elected man of the year by the French magazine L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui.
The work of Severiano Porto, in particular the projects developed in Manaus, is marked by the presence of an eco-efficient regionalism, in the sense of an always renewed application of the traditional principles of convenience and economy of the local Amazonian culture.
An anecdote that shows Severiano's spirit a bit is the story of his car which featured an sticker with the phrase “nature creates, architect transforms”. Challenging this claim, the architect gravely deleted the word "transform", overlapping it with the term "integra". For Severiano Porto, the architect integrate.
1Géométries Sud, du Mexique à la Terre de Feu - Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain
.Colours
.Rammed earth - bricks
.Geographic forms
.Ancestors
.Freddy Mamani = decorations and ornements with colours, lights etc.
.Sandra Barclay and Solano Benitez = no ornements, nothing hidden, time and materials visible
aSandra Barclay y Solano Benitez
bFreddy Mamani
2An overview of random Indigenous buildings or constructions
FORMS :
I have made a forms that would help having native Latin American point of view and definition of what is an Indigenous Architecture from Latin America.
It would be very helpful to have answers from Latin American, Indigenous descendants as much as European or any other origins descendants.
REMINDER :
The indigenous people : based on a survey in 2004-2005
Atacama : 3.044
Ava guaraní : 21.807
Aymara : 4.104
Chané : 4.376
Charrúa : 4.511
Chorote : 2.613
Chulupí : 553
Comechingón : 10.863
Diaguita/diaguita calchaquí :
31.753
Guaraní : 22.059
Huarpe : 14.633
Kolla : 70.505
Lule : 854
Mapuche : 113.680
Mbyá guaraní : 8.223
Mocoví : 15.837
Omaguaca : 1.553
Ona : 696
Pampa : 1.585
Pilagá : 4.465
Quechua : 6.739
Querandí : 736
Rankulche : 10.149
Sanavirón : 563
Tapiete : 524
Tehuelche : 10.590
Toba : 69.452
Tonocoté : 4.779
Tupí guaraní : 16.365
Wichí : 40.036
Other declared people : 3.864
Unspecified people : 92.876
Unanswered : 9.371