Abstract
The provision of social housing in Latin America became a pressing issue during the first half of the 20th century. This was a period when most capital cities, as well as other major conurbations, doubled and, even, tripled in size due to the emergence of a precarious industrialisation. As a result, during the 1940s through to the 1960s, Latin American governments began to promote the construction of large social housing projects in order to accommodate a rapidly growing population.
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Reference
See Anderson, B., Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London/New York: Verso, (1983) 2006.
See chapter ‘Public Spaces as Contact Zones& for more information on the construction of cable cars in Colombia and Venezuela.
In this case, the woven bark panels were replaced by split bamboo branches tied up with vegetable strings.
This is important because architectural hybridisation in the Latin American context is often understood as a combination of forms, materials and construction techniques appropriated from Europe and North America with local traditions. As a result, hybridisation is understood as a negative phenomenon, an inferior by-product of the mixture of two (or more) antecedents from Europe or North America which are considered to be ‘pure& and hence superior.
See ‘DissemiNation: Time, Narrative and the Margins of the Modern Nation& in Bhabha, H. K., The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1994. For a further discussion of the contribution of Bhabha&s writing to the development of contemporary architectural theory see Hernández, E, Bhabha for Architects. London: Routledge, 2010.
See Turner, J. F. C, Housing by People: Towards Autonomy in Building Environments. London: Marion Boyars, 1976.
As in the case of the projects designed by Affonso Eduardo Reidy (the Pedregulho Housing Complex in Rio de Janeiro, 1950-1952) and Carlos Raúl Villanueva (El Paraíso, 1952-1954, and Urbaniza-ción 23 de Enero, 1955-1957).
For a further analysis of the Favela Barrio Programme in Rio de Janeiro, see Hernandez, R, P. Kellett and L. Allen (eds.) Rethinking the Informal City: Critical Perspectives from Latin America. Oxford/New York: Berghahn Books, 2009.
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Hernández, F. (2010). Designing for Poverty. In: Beyond Modernist Masters: Contemporary Architecture in Latin America. Birkhäuser, Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0346-0495-6_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0346-0495-6_4
Publisher Name: Birkhäuser, Basel
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