Modern Architecture in Latin America presents itself culturally rooted and well accepted.

Especially in Brazil the abstract quality of modern spaces turned out to be the perfect means to express an imagery of a new society of the 20iest century.

Quite naturally modern architecture became the cultural link between indigenous forms, colors and symbols and a growing desire for rationalism by a new intellectual class in Brazil in the first half of the last century.

The 1930's saw an outburst of modern creativity supported by progressive politics understood as efforts for social justice, the issue of the Latin American continent.

Those radical political and cultural reforms are documented and preserved in fine built examples such as the first public modern building in Latin America, the Ministry for Education and Health in Rio de Janeiro 1936 or in the numerous public museums for modern art in Sao Paulo and elsewhere, the public Ibirapuera Park in Sao Paulo and the Flamengo Park in Rio de Janeiro to name just the most prominent. The climax of modernity was reached in 1956 with the government's commitment to lay ground to a new capital city - Brasilia, inaugurated in 1960.

Brasilia is both: a heroic formal celebration of a progressive state expressed by a triumphal axis and an egalitarian manifest carried out in an urban plan of rational order.

Brasilia is the most consequent modern ideal city based on a letter of principles and measures. The distribution of buildings is purely functional, the measures of the lots are based on scientific statistic parameters compiled to the best of knowledge by urban planners at the time.

The formal guidelines for the residential buildings follow the principles of Corbusian theories (piloti, flat roofs, monumental horizontal proportions, abstract formal differenciation) while the institutional buildings show distinct and individual artistic authorship.

Since most of these urban design principles failed to succeed in other contexts, Brasilia eventually was stigmatized by the past two generations of architects in the northern hemisphere as the example par excellence of all that was considered wrong with modern architecture's urbanism. However after its half century of existence the city not only works, but to the delight of its population it seems to work well.

The buildings raised above ground created public shaded space and natural voids in an increasingly denser urban context so well known from the coastal cities. Brasilia meant the beginning of an infrastructural development in the unpopulated hinterland of a country amongst those with the densiest cities in the world.

The ambiguity of the nature of the space between the ground and the building is a characteristic of the public realm in Brasilia making perfect sense there, while easily loosing meaning when exported to a different context.

A sophisticated structural design approach characterizes modern Brazilian architecture either by exaggerating the neccessary wide span of a building raised above ground or by framing the space with temple like columns. In any case the ground itself is well prepared and designed to receive the volume above. In the best examples of contemporary Brazilian architecture the void between ground and building is designed with equal attention to its spatial quality as the building itself. The touching point of the building with the ground often becomes the clue of the entire architectural scheme.

In 1987 Brasilia'original masterplan was granted the status of a historical city by including it in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. This status generated a letter of laws that have been established to preserve Brasilia.

"Far from being just a curious anomaly in the area of international cultural affairs, this pardoxical status forces a continuous investigation of the potential of modern architecture to utilize the legal and ideological tools provided by the anti-modernist preservationist movement. Under such directives the designer that is aked to intervene in the unique context of Brasilia must confront the difficulties encountered while addressing issues of social housing and quality of urban life within the kind of protected historical urban areas that are typically found in any of the centuries-old urban centers of Europe and Asia, but do so while respecting a set of formal, aesthetic, and urban conditions, that in any other context would still be in the making and under critical scrutiny." Jorge Silvetti, GSD 2002

The studio will provide designs for one last unbuilt superquadra within the area of the original masterplan of the city of Brasilia.

We will study the design principles of the original plan and the legal apparatus of the UNESCO resolution. These ordinances do not mandate stylistic continuity in new constructions, but rather, in a consistently modernistic mode, they codify and prescribe its more abstract attributes, such as proportion and scale.

The program for the superquadras contains all the components of any typical urban fabric, dominated by residential units and served by a host of urban institutions, commerce and infrastructure ( i.e. schools, church, gym, commerce, parking etc.).

Given the nature of Brasilia's planning principles and master plan ideas, the project of a superquadra will neccessarily involve a sophisticated understanding of urban and landscape considerations.

But above all we will deal with the abstract measures of density, the most important and ideologically charged topic in urban design.

The translation of mathematical figures meant to describe both a livable and environmentally responsible density into formal layouts is the ongoing focus of debate in urban design and the most significant cultural difference of societies.

The legal codes defining Brasilia's density are the same of any American or Western European city yet the definition of public and private spaces is radically different.

We will study formal elements of modern architecture and will try to examine subtleties of tropical architecture such as the open ground floor space.

Revisting Brasilia will help to stimulate a critical debate in the studio about modern versus traditional urban design principles.

Program

Neighborhood scheme for app. 3.000 residents in one superquadra (SQN 207) plus a facility based on the program of a SESC institution ( Social Infrastructure financed by a percentage of the salary of a company's workers) will serve as the public component on the site

Superquadra = 280 m x 280 m = 78.400 m² = 19,37 acres

Buildable area = 57.600 m² = 14,23 acres 73.5 % of total area

Nonbuildable area = 20.800 m²= 5,14 acres 26.5 % of total area

Area of occupancy = 11.760 m² = 2,91 acres 15 % of total area

Public SESC institution with restaurant, pool, library, auditorium and health care center

The students may also work in groups of 3 members, each responsible for one particular component of the site.

In preparation for the trip to Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia during spring break teams of 2 students will provide presentations on selected Brazilian modern and contemporary architects.

Bibliography

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James Holston; The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Brasilia, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1989

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Le Corbusier; The City of To-morrow and its Planning, MIT Press, Cambridge 1971

Christopher Alexander; A city is not a Tree. Architectural Forum April 1965, pp58-62

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Nogueira Batista, Geraldo et al; Brasilia: a Captal in the Hinterland, Planning Twentieth Century Capital Cities, David L.A. Gordon, London and New York, Routledge, 2006 p. 164-181

Segawa, Hugo / Edward J.Sullivan et al; After the Miracle: Brazilian Architecture 1960-2000, Brazil Body & Soul, New York, Guggenheim Museum 2002 p. 558-569

Shoumatoff, Alex; The Capital of Hope, New York Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1980

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