La métropole en Amérique latine (1830-1930)
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Jusqu'au 30 juin 2018, America Society présente The Metropolis in Latin America (1830-1930), l'occasion d'explorer un siècle d'urbanisation et de transformations du paysage urbain, mais aussi une période riche en changements politiques et sociaux dans des villes comme Buenos Aires (Argentine), La Havane (Cuba), Lima (Pérou), Mexico (Mexique), Rio de Janeiro (Brésil) et Santiago du Chili.
The Metropolis in Latin America (1830-1930)America Society (New York, USA), jusqu'au 30 juin 2018.
Commissariat de l'exposition : Idurre Alonso et Maristella Casciato.
Organisation : Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
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| Chapelle maya, Robert Stacy-Judd, ca. 1930. Courtesy of the Robert Stacy-Judd papers, Art, Design & Architecture Museum; University of California, Santa Barbara |
“The juncture that followed the processes of independence from Mexico
to Argentina triggered a myriad of local initiatives that led to the
re-organization of the cities from the newly freed republics to the
nation-states before the Second World War,” explained Americas Society
Visual Arts Director and Chief Curator Gabriela Rangel. “Metropolis
is an effort that reveals the importance of archival research within a
period that have been mostly overseen in the U.S. scholarship on Latin
America. After Americas Society’s exploration of the emergence of
mid-century modern design through our 2015 exhibition MODERNO: Design for Living in Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela 1940-1978,
we aim to present a previous step in the configuration of modern
impulses and projects for the urban environment in small cities and big
capitals.”
“During the almost four centuries of colonial rule, town planning was
a key tool to build cities that had to be commercially functional and
militarily strategic,” commented exhibition curator and The Getty
Research Institute’s Associate Curator of Latin American Collections
Idurre Alonso. “This exhibition traces the changes of six major capitals
as independence, industrialization, and exchange of ideas altered their
built environments and eventually transformed them into monumental,
modern metropolises.”
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Following independence, Latin Americans had an urgent desire to break
with the colonial past. This desire was expressed through architecture
and urban planning, among other ways. Over a time of intense growth and
social and demographic changes, cities began to reshape themselves,
removing or diminishing the prominence of colonial symbols through the
construction of civic buildings that emphasized the new identities of
independent nations. “Latin American metropolises were dramatically
reconfigured, becoming experimental laboratories where scientific
planning mingled with the natural environment to create forward-looking
approaches to city design,” said Maristella Casciato, exhibition curator
and Senior Curator of Architecture at The Getty Research Institute.
By the later part of the nineteenth century significant changes,
including massive migration to cities and the beginning of local
industrialization, resulted in new urban development. In order to
accommodate the lifestyle of the new bourgeoisie, capitals were lavishly
embellished with grand avenues. In major cities, such as Buenos Aires,
Mexico City, and Rio de Janeiro, a fascination with the Parisian grands travaux of the second French empire resulted in the adoption of
European planning models. Radial networks of avenues, as well as new
parkways, public parks, and botanical gardens transformed the cities.
However, the legacy of the colonial city was still visible. For example,
the civic plaza remained the cultural center of many cities, as it had
in the colonial era.
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| Vue générale de Buenos Aires depuis la Plaza de Toros, Emeric Essex Vidal, 1820. From Emeric Essex Vidal, Picturesque Illustrations of Buenos Ayres and Monte Video (London, 1820), pl. after title page. The Getty Research Institute |
In the 1910s, grand celebrations across Latin America marked one hundred
years of independence. Coinciding with the end of World War I and a
significant increase in immigration from Europe, these commemorations
sparked a reconsideration of national identity. Architects, planners,
and politicians initiated a return to local architectural traditions,
eschewing nineteenth-century European models in favor of pre-Columbian
and colonial revivals.
In the following decades a younger generation of designers started
instilling their projects with utopian ideas of modernity, which implied
social transformations and urban reconfigurations. They conceived the
metropolis as the city for all, with standardized housing and a new
functional order. The Metropolis in Latin America, 1830–1930
creates a rich visual narrative with the aim of providing an
understanding of how this transformative period allowed for the
emergence of a modernist architectural language.
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| Perspective View of the Castle Square Designed by Professor Alfred
Agache as the Main Business Center. Alfred Donat Agache (French, 1875–1959) Chromolithograph in Cidade do Rio de Janeiro: Remodelação- Extensão e Embellezamento (Paris: Foyer Brésilien, 1930) |
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| Plan de Lima - Platte Grond van Lima, de Hoofdstad van Peru Plan of Lima, Capital of Peru ca. 1760. Isaak Tirion (Dutch, 1705–1765). Engraving. |
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| Nathaniel Currier (American, 1813–1888). La Alameda de Mexico - The Public Park of Mexico, 1848. Los Angeles, Getty Research Institute |
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| Avenue de Mayo 1914, Unknown photographer, Gelatin silver prints in “Travel Albums from Paul Fleury’s Trips to Switzerland, the Middle East, India, Asia, and South America,” 1896–1918 |
The Metropolis in Latin America (1830-1930)
America Society (New York, USA), jusqu'au 30 juin 2018.
Commissariat de l'exposition : Idurre Alonso et Maristella Casciato.
Organisation : Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
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