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Authors
Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
The work of Italian architect and designer Gio Ponti was for a long time removed from Italian architectural historiography, relying mostly on the difficulties of classifying it between rationalist codes or traditional/local and classic ones. During the 1950´s Ponti travelled extensively abroad, but it was in Latin America where he faced an architectural repertory expressed on a way which had a profound impact in his polymorphic career. While in Brazil, Venezuela and Mexico, Ponti could identify with a certain modern reasoning not only on a vernacular and local basis, but also rooted on a classical and Mediterranean one. Brought by the Europeans and local architects that studied abroad, these roots were reinterpreted locally to be the basis of some of the works of Lucio Costa in Brazil and Barragán in Mexico. A result of the of cross-cultural relations, these expressions cannot be taxed merely as a ‘regionalist architecture’ though, as this could reduce them to a superficial dichotomy as `there is no pure regional or international style whatsoever`. Instead, these architects shared a common reasoning on how and what to consider as their tradition, which included formal and cultural repertoires, construction techniques, climate responsiveness, and ways of living. Therefore, this article aimed to identify and analyse thru a ‘comparative and transnational’ approach, the effects and common aspects that the overseas incursions of three modernists masters - Lucio Costa, Barragan and Gio Ponti, had on their work.
Description
I would like to thank the support of the Gio Ponti Archives and the Gio Ponti Epistolary in Milan which have been kindly contributing to my continued studies on Gio Ponti´s oeuvre.
Keywords
Gio Ponti Barragán Lucio Costa Latin Modernism vernacular
Citation
PONZIO, Angelica – The [Latin] Modernism of Ponti, Costa and Barragán in REGIONALISM, NATIONALISM & MODERN ARCHITECTURE. Proceedings. Porto: CEAA, 2018, p. 330-341