This article was originally published on July 20, 2018. To read about other iconic architecture projects, visit our AD Classics section.
Ibirapuera Park is a landmark in the city of São Paulo and a milestone of Brazilian modern architecture. Housing a cluster of five cultural buildings connected by a light, sinuous canopy, the project—designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer in harmony with the landscaping—reads like poetry floating over São Paulo's urban fabric.
Commissioned in 1951 by Governor Lucas Nogueira Garcez—who established a planning commission composed of public and private sector representatives for the celebrations of the IV Centennial of the City of São Paulo—the park was envisioned as a landmark for the capital, serving as a vital hub for culture and leisure. This idea, which had previously been championed by Ciccillo Matarazzo, paved the way for a proposal that combined a series of cultural and artistic buildings.
Located opposite what is now Parque O’Higgins, the complex designed by the firm Bresciani Valdés Castillo Huidobro (BVCH) in 1952 is one of the most important models of state-sponsored social housing in Chile. It successfully integrates into the urban fabric, responds appropriately to the varying scales of the project—both the block and the individual apartment—and, above all, results in a work that has been deeply understood and embraced by its residents.
This article was originally published on February 1, 2018. To read about other iconic architectural projects, visit our Architecture Classics section.
With the exponential growth of São Paulo's population in the 1930s and the encouragement of the private construction market, several architects were invited to design buildings for diverse uses in the city center. Álvaro Vital Brasil and Adhemar Marinho were responsible for designing the Esther Building, an icon of the first phase of verticalization around Praça da República. [1]
In 1933, when the city surpassed the one-million-inhabitant mark, a considerable number of high-rise buildings began to be constructed. [2] As a result of urban demographic expansion and mass verticalization between the 1930s and 1940s, high rents and rising land values in the expanded downtown area triggered transformations in the residential and urban landscape. [3]
Located in the central Recoleta neighborhood of Buenos Aires, on a large plot of land free from the constraints of the traditional city grid—between Figueroa Alcorta Avenue and the railway tracks—and facing the National Library and the Faculty of Law, stands the ATC Argentina Televisora Color building (now Televisión Pública), designed by architects Flora Manteola, Javier Sánchez Gómez, Josefa Santos, Justo Jorge Solsona, Rafael Viñoly, Carlos Sallaberry, and Felipe Tarsitano.
With a built area of 35,000 square meters dominated by a public, sloping rooftop terrace—notwithstanding current access restrictions—and completed in 1978 for the World Cup during Argentina's military dictatorship, the building proposed a dialogue between technology and landscape, presenting a functional architecture capable of generating high-quality public space within the city.
Completed in 1962 by the architectural firm SEA (Schapira Eskenazi Arquitectos), the Montecarlo II building is part of a collective residential housing complex located on the block bounded by San Martín, Seis Norte, Siete Norte, and Cuatro Poniente streets in Viña del Mar.
At first glance, the project stands out both for the volumetric treatment of the buildings—arranged on the site to achieve a major urban-scale intervention—and for their distinctive facades.
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.jpg?1531751405 "Oscar Niemeyer Auditorium. Image © Manuel Sá")
.jpg?1531751260 "Palácio da Agricultura / Museum of Contemporary Art. Image © Manuel Sá")
.jpg?1531751296 "Palácio da Agricultura / Museum of Contemporary Art. Image © Manuel Sá")
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