Geometric shapes, exposed reinforced concrete walls, visible electrical installations, large windows that prioritize natural light and ventilation, gardens that value native plants. The first works by the Mexican architect Juan O’Gorman, built between 1929 and 1932, bring an aesthetic that can be seen today, but in reality they are the pure expression of one of the currents of the 20th century modernist movement, functionalism.
Inspired by the concepts of the famous French architect Le Corbusier, who in 1923 published a manifesto in which he proposed the search for an architecture with the spirit of that time, industrial and machinist, O’Gorman was excited and saw an architectural solution for 1920s Mexico in this disruptive proposal. After the Mexican Revolution, the country's reconstruction was the priority. Or, as Le Corbusier said in Vers une architecture, these were times when it was necessary to choose between “Architecture or Revolution” – and revolution “can be avoided”.
The idea was to create a universal language that would make it possible to build elements in series, in the same way that a car is produced, explains specialist Cláudia Virginia Stinco, professor of Architecture and Urbanism at Mackenzie Presbyterian University. “They imagined that houses could also be made in factories and then assembled. This would help to solve serious problems not only of homelessness, but of efficient and morally decent housing”.
