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TIME – DECEMBER 12, 1955

The Latin American Look

Since the war, one of the greatest building booms in history has changed the face of Latin America, and
no letup is in sight. To house a population that is growing at double the world rate, the countries south of
the border have built thousands of large-scale apartment projects, office buildings, stadiums, university
halls and government buildings. In the major cities, new, skyscraper, skylines rise amidst one- and two-
century-old slum clusters and rows of two-story stores. To portray a decade of tumultuous growth,
Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art is currently displaying a photographic exhibit (assembled by
Architecture Historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock) of 49 major building projects in ten Latin American
countries and Puerto Rico. The display demonstrate that Latin American architects have not only,
developed a dramatic style of their own, but one ideally suited to their climate and way of life.

Common Style

Most modern Latin American architecture, whether along Mexico City's Paseo de la Reforma, Caracas'
Avenida Bolivar or São Paulo's Avenida Anhangabaú, has a distinctive look. Almost all Latin American
architects use combinations of louvers, grills, projecting concrete slabs and movable screens to control
the dazzling sunshine; they share a lavish liking for color, usually dramatically set off against sparkling
white. There is a dearth of structural steel and timber, so the designers have almost universally turned to
reinforced concrete. It is a building medium that can easily become clumsy and heavy, but the Latin
Americans have seized on its highly plastic quality to fashion shell-like vaulting, bold cantilevers, curving
façades that give high sculptural qualities to their best buildings.

Many of the younger Latin American architects finish; off their studies at .U.S.universities, but so, far. U.S.
influence shows up chiefly in technical details like plumbing and elevators, in living-space layouts and the
general addiction to the skyscraper principle. Main inspiration for Latin America's new architectural' forms
is the international style pioneered by such men as France's Perret and Le Corbusier. A prime example:
Brazil's beehive fronted Ministry of Education and Public Health in Rio de Janeiro, the work of a team of
architects including Le Corbusier and his brilliant Brazilian disciple, Oscar Niemeyer. Historian Hitchcock
calls it "still perhaps -the finest single modern structure in Latin America."

The Leaders

Brazil started early, and, thanks to booming São Paulo (TIME, Jan. 21, I952), has the greatest number of
distinguished buildings. But in recent years other countries have made giant strides. Historian Hitchcock
labels Mexico's University City (TIME, Feb. 23, 1953) "the most spectacular extra-urban architectural
entity of the North American continent." In about five years, the building boom has raised the height of
typical buildings in Caracas, Venezuela from one to 2o-odd stories. Such handsome buildings as the
auditorium of - Caracas' University City, with its high concrete vault filled with free-floating colored panels
by U.S. Mobile Maker Alexander Calder, have put Venezuelan Architect Carlos Raul Villanueva in the
front rank of Latin American designers. Puerto Rico, boasts a well-done hotel, the Caribe Hilton, and
Henry Klumb's outstanding Catholic church near San Juan.

The boom has had its flaws-grandiose plans that take years to complete, antiquated methods, shoddy
workmanship, poor maintenance. Though' Latin America has so far produced some dozen architects of
high reputation, none has as yet developed a style as effective- as that of Niemeyer, now 48. But Latin
America's, "grand old men" of architecture are only in their 50s or younger, and a host of younger
architects is coming up; the boom goes on and the future is bright.