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Registro Formal I: Villanueva is the first architectural photography body of work I have completed. It consists of a visual investigation about the four major urban clusters that Arc. Carlos Raúl Villanueva conceived for Caracas: El Silencio neighborhood, Fine Art and Natural Sciences museums, 23 de Enero residential complex and Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas, which shoots happened between 2007 and 2012.
With time, Villanueva's series became part of a more robust archive called C Series (2008); a photography journey through other architectural heritages in Caracas. Buildings and urban areas of all periods and styles.
Registro Formal I: Villanueva es el primer trabajo personal sobre arquitectura que he realizado, y consta de una investigación fotográfica que abarca los cuatro núcleos urbanos más importantes que el arquitecto Carlos Raúl Villanueva diseñó para Caracas: La reurbanización de El Silencio, los museos de Bellas Artes y Ciencias Naturales, la urbanización 23 de Enero y la Ciudad Universitaria; cuyo registro comenzó en el año 2007 y culminó en 2012.
Con el tiempo, Registro Formal I Villanueva pasa a formar parte de un cuerpo de trabajo más robusto titulado Serie C (2008); una investigación y registro visual sobre el patrimonio arquitectónico de Caracas, incluyendo edificios y espacios urbanos de todas las épocas y estilos.
El Silencio neighborhood, from Plaza O’Leary. 2007. Bernardo Olmos All Rights Reserved.
Reurbanizacion de El Silencio, desde la Plaza O’Leary. 2007. Bernardo Olmos Todos los Derechos Reservados
Photos by Bernardo Olmos, All Rights Reserved.
Essay by Rebeca Fernandez Vivas.
By Rebeca Fernández
Latin America has always been the repository of European utopias. Since it was discovered, multitudes of dreamers have traveled hundreds of miles to take advantage of the continent’s tempered weather and abundant resources, to pursue their adventurous and romantic ideals.
At the beginning of the 20th century, one European utopia in particular made its way into the heart of Latin America: the notion of progress through technological innovation and industrialization.
In the old continent, the invention of new materials, new ways to harness energy and new means of transportation were revolutionizing the manner in which society worked, lived and expressed itself. In the realm of the arts, the search for new ways to interpret the rapid urbanization and industrialization of Europe gave birth to a movement that came to be known as Modernism.
This new way of thinking proposed a life of self-consciousness, examination and experimentation that usually led to abstraction. Empowered by recent scientific breakthroughs and disenchanted by the perversions of the Enlightenment, modernist decided to abandon old artistic canons and push the senses towards new creative possibilities.
Once Latin American elites heard of the rapid changes occurring in Europe, they too yearned to partake in the brave new world that was being ushered by innovation. Since Latin American nations achieved their independence, they had plunged in a mad search for an international identity that would honor their multiethnic origins without attaching it forever to their colonial past. Modernism, with his philosophy of progress through human creation, sounded like the perfect way to achieve a new and prestigious notion of the Latin American self.
There was also the issue of the continent’s severe lack of infrastructure. The first years of these new born countries were marred by political and economic instability. If Latin America wanted to participate in the age of progress, the first thing its governments needed to do was to create the roads, factories and buildings that would take their nations one step closer to modernity.
Carlos Brillembourg (2012) observes that from 1929 to 1960, a change in Latin America’s ruling elite –either in the form of democracies or dictatorships- and the occurrence of an economic boom -brought by a spike in the bulk market- made way for the cultural and architectural innovations in the continent. 1 While, in the aforementioned period, everything was in place for Latin America to dive into Modernism; in Europe, the wars had greatly diminished the continent’s capability to embark on major building projects were modernist architects could test their ideas. It was in this historical context that several European architects decided to visit or move to the Americas and take part of the infrastructure overhaul promoted by the governing elites. Among these illustrious visitors, none made a greater impression than modernist Swiss-French master Le Corbusier.
In 1926, when he embarked on his first South American tour, the Swiss architect had already developed a body of ideas that became rules for any design that aspire to be modern. According to Le Corbusier, buildings were “machines for living,” thus for a design to be truly modern form always had to follow function. In order to achieve this strict functionality, Le Corbusier recommended the adhesion to five principles: First, to use a pilotis to serve as the structure’s foundation. Second, to use a flat rooftop to host a garden. Third, to design a free plan that would give the owners of the structure flexibility in the use of the space. Fourth, to use of ribbon windows to maintain the continuity between the inside and outside of the building. Finally, to freely arrange openings on the façade according to the functional needs of the structure.
The aforementioned dogmas guarantee the observance of modernism’s four notions of design: abstraction, transparency, reflection, and dynamism. “When Le Corbusier was invited in September 1929 to lecture in Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Rio de Janeiro, he was received by a culture ready to apply and transform European modernism to the pressing needs of a new and vibrant economy,” says architecture historian Valerie Fraser. In 1936, in a second visit to Brazil, Le Corbusier was able to forge a close relationship with a group of young architects who worked with him in the design of the first modernist public building in the world: The headquarters of the Ministry of Education and Health in Rio de Janeiro.
Brazilian architect Henrique Mindlin (1956) points out that, “among the reasons for the establishment of such close relationships were perhaps the common Latin background, and more likely the ready employment in Brazil of Ferro-concrete [reinforced concrete] as the structural material for large buildings.”
Fraser (2000), on the other hand, says that the receptiveness with which Le Corbusier was receive had to do with the fact that the Latin America’s elite had been educated in Europe, spoke French with the same ease as their mother tongue, and had continuous contact with the changes occurring in Europe through their relationship with European intellectuals and the subscription to journals and books.
Le Corbusier’s visit served as spark to ignite and strengthen the modernist ideas that were taking hold of the minds of young Brazilian architects. However, the influence of the European master was not total. As Fraser points out, “Latin American modern architecture was not an uncritical reworking of European modernism (…) but a deliberate and more profound adaptation of, or challenge, to European models.”
Out of this group, there was one architect whose commitment, passion, and influence allowed him to breath life into Modernism’s utopia, his name: Oscar Niemeyer. His works, from its breakthrough design of an upper class leisure center in Pampulha to the monumental sculptural buildings he created for the country’s new center of government in Brasília, produced a new architectural vocabulary that became an intrinsic part of Brazil’s identity.
In seven decades of intense architectural practice, Niemeyer accumulated an extensive portfolio: around 600 projects spread from Rio de Janeiro and Algeria, all the way to La Hague and Paris.
When Venezuelan photographer Bernardo Olmos visited Brazil in 2008, his intention was to create an updated record of Neimeyer’s buildings located in the cities of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasília.
Olmos also wanted to elaborate a series that compared the buildings whose construction was demanded regularly by the urban entity versus artificial projects created to satisfy the nation’s modern expectations such as the structures in Brasília. Therefore, the next section will be devoted to the history behind some of the masterpieces created by the legendary architect –most of them included in Olmos’s Series Formal Registry II: Niemeyer- as well as the evaluation of his legacy.
The sensuous life in Rio
Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho was born in Rio de Janeiro on December 15, 1907. He was one of six children in an upper-middle class family; his father owned a graphic arts business.
In 1930, Niemeyer began to study architecture at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes, in Rio de Janeiro. Upon graduation, in 1934, one of his professors, Lucio Costa, offered the young carioca a position as a draftsman on the architectural firm he shared with Carlos Leão and Gregorio Warchavchik.
While interim for Costa, he participated in the design of Brazil’s first modernist public building: The headquarters for the Ministry of Education and Health in Rio de Janeiro. Costa enlisted a group of young architects –that later included Niemeyer- to contribute on the project and asked renowned modernist Le Corbusier to serve as a primary consultant.
Niemeyer’s involvement in the design process allowed him to work closely with the Swiss master and absorb his vision of a modern world shaped by the myth of the machine.
One of Neimeyer’s critics, Stamo Papadaki (1950) says that, “during the three months that it took to establish the project, Niemeyer’s faith in the role of contemporary architecture had been strengthened.”
Costa’s team refined Le Corbusier’s original design for the Ministry. With Niemeyer as a leader, they honored the sun breaker concept by creating a series of adjustable louvers, raised the height of the pilotis, and ornamented the building’s interior with murals and decorative ceramic wall treatments typical of the Portuguese colonial architecture.
On the preface of Papadaki’s The Works of Oscar Niemeyer, Lucio Costa remembers his pupil’s ability to construct a language of his own out of Le Cobusier’s architectonic alphabet. “By giving to basic forms a new and surprising meaning, he created variations and new solutions with local patterns which have a grace and subtlety until then unknown to modern architecture.”
According to Papadaki, Neimeyer’s sudden departure from austerity and his immersion on the search for beauty can be best appreciated in the complex he built in 1940 in Pampulha, Belo Horizonte.
Breakthrough in Pampulha
Juscelino Kubitscheck, at the time the major of Belo Horizonte, had called onto Niemeyer to construct an upper class retreat –that included a Church, a casino and restaurant/dance hall- on the banks of an artificial lake.
In Pampulha, one can observe Modernism’s four notions of design, yet they are achieved through the use of alternating volumes, planes and curves that mimic the complex’s lush tropical surroundings.
The architect extensive use of glass impressed a sense of lightness to the casino and dance hall, while establishing a nexus between interior and exterior.
In the Church dedicated to Saint Francis of Assisi, Niemeyer explores the plastic and aesthetic possibilities offered by reinforce concrete. An undulating parabolic vault made of this tensile material serves as both the roof and the walls of the temple.
To complement the sculptural feel of the church, Niemeyer commissions artist Candido Portinari to create an azulejos mural to decorate the outside wall.
Pampulha is also the place were Niemeyer begins his long life collaboration with landscape artist Roberto Burle Marx.
A genius artist in his own right, Marx refused to make his design subservient to architecture. Working in tandem, Marx and Niemeyer created a landscape of biomorphic forms filled with native plants that enhanced the organic vibe of the complex.
A modern boost for Sao Paulo
Between the 40s and 50s, Niemeyer was commissioned dozens of projects, inside as well as outside of Brazil.
In Sao Paulo, the rise of a prosperous industrial area and the resulting flow migrant workers in to the city pushed its authorities to invest on public infrastructure. During that period, Niemeyer designed two modernist landmarks for this metropolis: Edifício COPAN (1953-1966) and Ibirapuera park (1954).
Commissioned by the Panamerican Company for Hotels and Tourism (COPAN), is a 140-metre, 38-story residential building that can accommodate 5,000 inhabitants. Niemeyer gave the popular housing project a feminine look by creating a horizontal block with a sinuous façade emphasized by sun breakers.
Ibirapuera Park marked Niemeyer’s second major collaboration with Burle Marx. Located in the heart of Sao Paulo, the leisure complex was dominated by a gigantic free-form marquee that connected a several pavilions that house an auditorium and several museums. Here, Niemeyer drew simple but full body structures, which could be considered as small scale experiments of what the master would create for Brazil’s new modernist capital: Brasília.
The sculpture of monuments
Just months after taken his oath as Brazil’s new president, Juscelino Kubitchek visit Oscar Niemeyer with the proposal of a lifetime. His government planned to build a new capital in the arid center on the country, and an architect was needed to design and construct all the buildings that would house the new governmental offices.
The city’s urban plan had been assigned to Lucio Costa, who inspire by the form of airplanes, distributed the residential area over an ample curve which would be intersected by a long esplanade that would all governmental offices.
Niemeyer’s designs for the National Congress of Brazil, the Cathedral of Brasília, the National Museum of the Republic, the Palacio de Itamari, the Palácio da Alvorada (executive residence), the Palácio do Planalto (executive office), and the Supreme Federal Court, were daring, sculptural and monumental.
The asymmetric domes belonging to the house and the senate at the National Congress invites the observer to reflect on the true mission of the legislative body, while the delicate colonnades that sustain the four palaces grant these imposing houses a lighter than air quality.
Yet no designs in Brasília conveys the idea of future more than the flourishing rib structure of the Cathedral and the levitating ramps that adorn the National Museum of the Republic.
In a tribute to Oscar Niemeyer, British architect Norman Foster writes that when Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin visited Brasília he likened the experience to landing on a different planet.
Brasília was made to fit the size of its country’s dreams of progress and positivism. Its grand empty esplanade, its avenues with no traffic lights, its monumental sculptural buildings, told the story of a society able to live at the rhythm marked by the advancement of technology. However, as it happens with all dreams, they eventually end.
In the case of Brasília the wake-up calls were multiple. “The vast empty plazas seemed to sum up the social alienation of modern society; surrounded by slums, the monumental government buildings of its center exemplified Brazil’s deeply rooted social inequities,” says The New York Times art critic, Nicolai Ouroussoff.
There was also an abrupt change in government. In 1964, just four years after the city was inaugurated, a group of right-wing officers seized power and installed a military dictatorship that would last 20 years.
Exile and return
Niemeyer’s known leftist ideological inclinations made life very difficult in the militarized country. After the project commissions dried up, Niemeyer decided to move to Paris, France, where he opened an office.
During his years in exile, Niemeyer work in several projects around Algiers and Europe –chief among them the design and construction of the French Communist Party headquarters.
Even when his communist party affiliation got him barred from working in the United States, Niemeyer remained true to his political beliefs.
Some critics believe that it his concern with urban planning dilemmas such as the creation of effective designs for social housing, the creation of public spaces to forge a sense of community, and the role of modernity as an usher of equalitarian society can not be separated from his leftist political stance.
Once Brazil regain its democratic credentials, Niemeyer return to its homeland and continued to work on public work projects.
In 1989, he built the Latin America Memorial, a cultural, political and leisure complex, located in São Paulo. Here Niemeyer merges parabolic vaults, trapezoidal walls and curve ramps into a visual symphony that pretends to signify the integration that exists between Latin American nations.
An impressive sculpture of an open hand with the silhouette of the continent in bright red marks the entrance of the complex.
Another of Niemeyer’s post-exile creations is the futuristic Contemporary Art Museum inaugurated in the city of Niterói in 1996. The main building resembles a flying saucer and sits on top of a column that emerges from a reflective pool. A curved ramp painted white and red leads to the main exposition hall, where a door leads to a viewing hall where a ribbon of windows lets visitors enjoy spectacular views of the neighboring city of Rio de Janeiro.
His final project in Brazil was the Niterói Popular Theatre building finished in 2007. Niemeyer uses his trademark curves to create a dynamic structure enliven by murals of marching workers and dancing nudes in Brazil’s national colors. Once more, the modernist master makes use of a curved ramp to take visitors to the upper floor of the building, where there is a concert hall for 350 people and a foyer in which one can admire a view of Rio de Janeiro. Niemeyer’s clever solution to accommodate bigger audiences is a reversible box that opens up towards a plaza with a capacity for 10,000 people.
Final days and Legacy
On the last years of his life, Oscar Niemeyer worked with the same joy he showed on his first days as an interim at Lucío Costa’s architecture firm. He would go to his office everyday and by the end of the afternoon he was ready to received colleagues, critics or admirers, who visited him often to reminisce of the past and speculate about architecture’s future.
At the age of 104, he remained a staunch believer in Modernism, because he believed the movement ‘could make life richer, freer, more spirited, and more meaningful.”
To Niemeyer, an architect’s first mission was to construct a world that served everyone’s need and not just those of the people who could pay for great design. His fervent conviction on this issue explains the master’s frequent involvement in projects that would benefit society as a whole. In Brazil, public structures such as the COPAN building, the Ibirapuera complex, the governmental compounds in Brasília as well as several museums and theatres talk volumes about Niemeyer’s commitment to bring progress and welfare to his fellow men.
The second mission of the architect, Niemeyer would point out, was coming up with structural solutions that meshed function and beauty. In this particular, the Brazilian master always excelled.
As British architect Norman Foster says in his tribute, it was Niemeyer the first to stood accepted modernist wisdom on its head. “Inverting the familiar dictum that ‘form follows function’, he demonstrated instead that, ‘when a form creates beauty it becomes functional and therefore fundamental in architecture.”
Through an extensive body of work Niemeyer reminded the World “that the body and the mind, the sensual and the rational, were not necessarily in opposition,” concludes The New York Times art critic Nicolai Ouroussoff.19 Inasmuch, what was a very personal style -born out of the pursuit of these two self-imposed professional missions- soon evolved into the artistic language of an entire nation.
Furthermore, the syncretism between Niemeyer and Brazil has become so strong that art critic Paul Goldberger confesses, “It’s difficult to distinguish how much Niemeyer emerged out of an inherently Brazilian attitude toward design and how much his architecture itself created that attitude.”
However there is no discussion regarding the international impact produced by Niemeyer’s work. A walk through many a cosmopolitan city around the world will result in the discovery of curvilinear structures, high modern geometric forms, or the seamless integration of arts and landscape into architectural design.
Today, revolutionary architects –such as Zaha Hadid and Reem Koolhaas-, are still using in their designs the tectonic vocabulary, charged with soaring emotion and out-of-worldliness feel, that was first introduced to the World by carioca looking to fulfill his modernist utopia in the Brazilian grasslands.