SOUTHERN MODERNISMS. CRITICAL STANCES THROUGH REGIONAL APPROPRIATIONS. Conference proceedings

SOUTHERN MODERNISMS Cr itical St ance s throu gh Region al Appro priatio ns Conferenc e proceedings Edited by Joana Cunha Leal , M a r ia H ele n a M a ia and B egoña F arre IHA | I nstituto de História da Ar te, FCSH- UNL CEAA | C en tr o d e Est ud os A rn al do A raúj o, ES A P Proj ect Southe rn M ode rnisms (EXPL/ CPC - HAT/0191/2013) Febru ary 19 - 21, 2015 Títu lo Sou th ern M od ern i sms. Critical Stance s thr ough Re gional Appropr iations. Co nfere nc e pro ceed ings Editors Joana Cunha Leal, Maria Hel ena Maia and Begoñ a F a rré Torr as © Authors and CEAA/ESAP - CE SAP, IH A/FCSH - UNL, 2015 Graph ic des ign Joan a Cou t o Cover d esign : O Hom em d o S ac o Edit ion Centro de Estudos Ar naldo Ara újo - C ESAP - ESA P Ins tituto de Histór ia da Arte - FCSH - UN L Print ing LITOPOR TO - Artes Gráfi cas Limitada Port o, Po rtu ga l 1st e diti on: Fe bruar y 2 015 Pri nt run : 2 00 copi es ISBN: 978 - 972 - 8784 - 65 - 2 This pub lica tio n was conduct ed un der t he pro ject So uthe rn Moder nisms (EXPL/C PC - HAT/0191/2013), funded by national funds thr ough FCT under Pro ject 3599 - Promoting the Res earc h Production, Tec hnological De velopm ent a nd Inno vation. The au th o rs of th e t ext s h ave th e ex cl u si ve res pon si bil i ty of i m age cop yrights printed in th e corre sponde nt texts. The editors do not accept an y resp on si bil i ty for an y i m prop er u se of i ma ges an d a ny c ons eq uen ces f o llo w in g. Centro de Estudos Ar naldo Ara újo Esco la Superior Ar tística do Porto Largo de S. Domingos, 80 4050 - 545 PORTO, PORTUGAL Phone: + 351223392130 / Fax: +351223392139 Email: [email protected] www.esap.pt | www .ceaa.pt SOUTHERN MODERNISMS Cr itical St ance s throu gh Region al Appro priatio ns The hegem onic defi nition of Modernism has b een subjected to an intense cr it ical rev ision p roce ss that began seve ra l dec ades ago . Th is proces s has co ntr ibuted to the s ignific ant bro ade ning o f the mode rn ist canon by cha llengi ng its pr imal es se ntialis t ass umpt ions and forma list interpret at ions in t he fie lds o f both the v isua l arts and ar ch itecture. Th is con ference aims to furt her ex pand this rev ision, as it seeks to d isc uss the no ti on of “Southe rn Mo de rnism s” b y co nsi dering the hyp ot hesi s tha t re gi onal appro pr ia tions, bo th in So uther n Europe and th e South ern hemispher e, entailed imp ortant critic al stanc e s that have rema ined un seen or poorly explo red by art and arch ite ctu ral h i sto rian s . In as sociat ion w ith the Southern Mode rnisms rese arch pro jec t (FC T – E XPL/ CPC - HA T/0191/2 013), we w ant to consider th e en tren chment of southern modernisms in popul ar cultur e (fo lk art an d v ern acu lar arc hit ect ur e) a s an tic ipat in g some of the pr emi ses of wh at would l ater become kn own as crit ic al r eg iona lis m . It is there fore our purpos e to e xp lore a re search p ath that runs par a llel to key cla ims on modernis m’s inte rt winemen t with bo urgeo is socie ty and mass cu lture, b y quest ion ing the idea that an ae sthe tically signif icant reg ionalis m – one t hat res ists to the c oloniz ation o f internat iona l sty les and is suppo rted by c ritica l aware nes s – occu rred only in the f ield of arch itectu re, and c an on ly be repres e nted as a pos t - modernis t turn. Submissio ns are invited that en gage with all aspec ts o f the title. P apers might inc lude (but are not lim ite d to) : 1. the discuss ion of curre nt def init ions of modern ism(s ), reg iona lisms , fo lk art, ve r nac u lar architec ture, and those o f the tangent not ions of avant - ga rde , trad it ion, nat iona lisms , ratio nalis m, po pu lar or mass culture a nd pr imit ivism; 2. the effe cts o f establis he d dic hotom ies such a s cente rs vs. periphe ries; h igh a rt vs. low art ( inc lud in g fol k art) , etc ; as wel l as the challe nges raise d by north/sou th and we st/east co nceptu al divides; 3. the impac t of mo derni st appro ac hes o n the histo ry of M odern isms; the hegemo ny o f te leolog ical d iscou rses pos iting abst ract ion as the necessary historica l outco me for t he arts ( thus neg lecting o ther ongo ing interrog at ions on the means and pos sibilit ies of represe ntat ion) , or as far as arc hite ctu re is conc erned instrumen tal notions of rat iona lis m; 4. the po litica l implic ations of the above - mentioned interpreta t ions: the impac t of fasci sm’s populis m on Southern Euro pe; t he poten tial o f regiona lism as re sistance ; the poli t ical imp licatio ns of valid ating popu lar and ver na cu lar modes in th e rea lm of high art , and the ir relatio n to the avant - gar de milit an t anti - bourge o is pos itio ns; the prob lems ra ised b y the surve ys on fo l k and vern acu lar c ultu res thro ugh the len s of moder n ist visua l cu lture ( part icular ly thro ugh the use of photog raph y), e tc. CO NT ENT S keynote ad d re ss es LEAL, Joana Cunha - Southern Modernisms , p. 13 TOSTÕES, An a - Iberian Houses, the m agico f creatio n , p. 14 papers ALMEIDA , Sí lvia Vie ira de - The re demptio n of the vernacular in the understanding o f the mo dern - two ca ses f r om the S out h , p. 17 AN G E LO U, K la ir i - A creative response to Mo dernism: the case of Greek Mode rnism as seen throug h mode rn Greek sculpture , p. 26 BART OLO , Carlos - Dam ned Words: the use of Mode rn and Regional as attributes of folklo re modernist rendition in stage and costume design at the turn of the 1930's, p .27 BAUER, Susanne - So uthern Modernisms Default Mate riality of Whitene ss and its Connecti on to the I nternational Style , p. 4 9 BRIT ES, Joana Rita da Cos ta - Wid enin g th e scope of mod ern is m: is th ere r oo m for Portugues e fascis t architecture? p. 59 CARDOSO A lexandra; Maria Helena MAIA ; Alexandra TREVI SAN - Parallel paths , p. 72 CARVALHO , Rita Alm e ida de - Travelli ng mode rnisms: The tours and acquaintances of Portugues e archite cts , p.85 COLO NAS, Vassi li s - Greek Mode rnities in the inter - war perio d. Architec tural contradictio ns betwe en Neoclas sicism and Regional ism , p.103 COSCARELLI Comas , Sara - The GATCPAC as Barcelona' s Mediterreanean Critic al Regio nalism background , p. 112 DIEZ - PASTOR I ribas, Con cepci ón - A Critical Approac h to Modernist Architec ture in Spain. Rum ours and Truths , p. 122 EPOLIT O George - Medite rraneità oltremare : Assim ilation, Appro priation, or Rej ection? The Imposition of the Fascist Aesthetic Ideo logy of Mediterraneaness Overs eas f rom 1935 to 194 0 , p. 141 EULA, Luca; Eli sa PEGORIN - " Une autre modernité": The modern tradition of Tunisian arc hitecture i n '40 , p. 15 6 14 IBERIAN HOUSES, THE MAG IC OF CREATION Ana T ostõe s IST - UL / Docomomo In tern ati onal, Portug al Abstrac t The one - fa mily house program would be the main research the me in Iberia n arch ite ct ure , in th e fram ewo rk of cri ti ci sm of th e mod e rn car ri ed ou t i n exce ptional works execute d with pro grammatic mater ials, formal and spatial alike, and where the ver nacular was synthesized on the basis of dissimilar in tern ati ona l r efer en c es, following an intense line of deve lopment in which, acc ording to Alb er to Sartor i s, “t he t ra ditional magic o f Iber ian art was ree ncountere d with the path of a long interrupte d f ountain: that o f imagination. ” In th e cours e o f th e 195 0s, t he m od ern a bst ra ct prot ot ype b ec am e a n eq ua tion whic h tod ay w e s olve with nat ur e , to pogr aphy , ligh t, wi nd , view s, sens e of p lac e, an d in ten sit y of cu lt ura l root s. It was th e p eri od of t he rev i sion of t he m od ern, which in the Iber ian contex t of techno logic al backwar dness constituted a po te ntial to be explor ed. Eac h project was studied w ith patience an d passio n, from first sket ch t o ob sess iv e p res enc e on si te . The h ous e b ore t he mag ic of exper imentatio n, and thus became the focus of the arc hitec tural debate. Autho r identific atio n Ana T o stõ es . Is chai r of DO COMOM O Inter natio nal a nd is Full pro fe ssor of arc hitecture at IST- University of L isbon, where she specializes in twentie th ce ntur y archite c tur al and urb an his tory wit h an empha sis on Re - Use p ract ices. Sh e has p ub li shed w id el y, cu rat ed exh ibi tions, and taken par t in juries and scie ntific committees. Tostõe s has been vic e- pr esid en t of t he P ortu gu es e Bo rde r of Arch ite cts an d the P ortuguese se ctio n of the Internatio nal Assoc iation of Art Critics . Her res earc h fiel d i s t he th eory a nd hi st ory of a rchite cture and cons truction o f the twe ntie th cent ury , foc using on p os t - wa r II pe rio d a nd on t he rel ati ons b etwe en Euro pe an, Amer ic an, Afric an a nd As ian pro duc tion. On the se topic s she has publishe d boo ks and scientific articles , curate ex hibitions and tak en p a rt in ju ries, scie ntific committees and given lec tures in European, American, Asia n and African univer sities . Some of her works: Moder n Architectur e in Afr ica: Angola and Mozambique (2014); The Buil dings . C aloust e Gulbe nkian F ounda tio n (2012). Let ʼ s talk abo ut [7] Hou ses i n Ca scai s. Pri vat e l if e a rch it ectu re (2010 - 2012); Pardal Mont eir o, u ma f otob i ogr afia (2009); Arqu it ectu r a Po rtu gu esa C on temp orâ nea (2008); Lisbo a 1758: The Baixa Plan Today (20 08); Gulb enk ia n H eadq uart er s and Mus e um, The Archi t ectu r e of th e 60s (2006); Arquitec tura e cidad ania. Atel ier Nun o Te otón i o P ereira (2004); Biblioteca Nacional. Exterior/I nterior (2004); Portu ga l: A rch it ekt u r im 20. Jahrhund ert (1998); Ke il do Amaral, o arquite cto e o humanista (CML,1999); Arqu it ect u ra mod ern a portuguesa 1920 - 1970 (2003). She wa s t h e c oord in ator o f th e r es earc h p roj ect (P TD C/ AU R - AQI/103229/2008) “E xchanging World Visio ns” focused on the Sub - Sahara Afri can arc hi te ctu re d ev el op ed du rin g t he Mod e rn M ov em ent p eri od. PAPERS 17 THE REDEMPTIO N OF THE VE RNACU LAR IN THE U NDERS TANDIN G OF THE MODERN: Two c a se s from t he S outh: Ma nol o Hug ué and A lbert o San chez Sílvia V ieir a de A lme ida Instituto de H istór ia da Arte, FCSH , Universidade Nova de L isboa / Art History Inst itute, FCS H, Univers idade Nova de Lisboa, L isbon, Po rtugal Abst ract This paper aims at ex pl ori ng a conc epti on of M od ern ism whi ch is stron gl y linked to the Sout hern exp eri en ce and, in th is case, to the Spanis h cultur al heri ta ge. A Mode rni sm in whi ch th e es sence of a p eopl e, the popular culture a nd the rural world have a r ole to play. Acco rding to this purpos e I will take two ca s e studies which wer e ch os en mainly for th eir di ff eren c es. Havi n g made this choi ce it is my intention to emphasize that this Mode r nism p rov ide s deep pluralis tic answ ers. Man olo Hugué (1872 - 1945), and Alberto Sanchéz are the two main chara ct ers of this approa ch on M odernis m. Th eir sculpture repre sent s two fac et s of the visi on whi ch I intend to exp l ore. Man olo is frequ en tl y pre sen t ed as an a rti st wh ose wo rk li es under the nouc entisme ’s concep t ual for mulations. On the oth er hand, Al berto is often associ ated to surrea li sm and abstra ction. Witho ut discu ssing th eir stylistic affiliatio ns, whi ch w ou ld be usel ess to this paper pu rp ose, I will analyz e how thes e two artists w ork th eir cultur al ide ntity, how t hey r es cue th e vern ac u lar and h ow th ey unders tand and expres s th ei r modernity. “…returning to the tr adition of the un ique art of the Med iterrane an lands; escaping the Fre nch impressionism, the English pre - raphealism, the German symbolism”; a “un ique art of the man fro m here, of our re ligion, of our celebrations, o f our life.” Thus spoke the Uruguayan theor ist and painter Joaquín Torres - Garcia (1874 - 194 9), in the jou rnal Empori , in an art icle written as a manifesto, entitle “La nostra o rdinació I el notre cami” 1 . An article where he formulates explicitly t he principles o f Mediterranean esse ntiali s m 2 , pointing the way to findi ng perso nality itself 3 1 Torres- García, Joaquín, “La nostra ordinac ió i el nost re ca mí”, In Empori (Barcelo na) Any I, núm. 4 (IV - 1907), pp. 188 - 191. . Be in g Mediterranean, being o f the South, as o ppose d as bei ng from the North. Finding in the ir own cultural roots a unique identity of be ing mode rn, as oppose d to the international modern ism that is not concerne d with nationality n or tradition. An essentialism that meets the Catalan 2 Vallcorb a, Jaume. (1994). Noucenti sme, medi terraneisme i classi cismme: apunts per a l a his tória d’ una es tética. Barcelona: Quaderns Crema, p. 38. 3 Torres- García, Jo aq uín. (1 986). E scri ts sob re art . Barcel ona: Edicio ns 62 i “La Caixa”, p . 37. S ílvia V ieir a de A lmeid a, THE REDEMPTION OF THE VERNACULAR IN THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE MODER N: Two cases from the South: Mano lo Hug ué and Alber to Sanche z 18 noucentisme 4 , w idely informed on the Par i sian artist ic vanguard, but that vindicates its own stateme nt 5 This search fo r cultural i d enti ty was not excl us i ve of t he nouc entisme , as it was also alive in othe r Spanish regions, namely in Madr id, where the literary movement kn own as the Ge neration of 98, with its nationalist and regenerato r spirit, dwells on the nature or essence of Spain . 6 . A d iscussi on in which Sculptor Júlio António (1889 - 1919) took part when atte mpting to set the fundamental types of the race, through the scul pt ing series “Bustos de la Raza”, produce d be tween 1909 and 1914 7 This discuss ion acquires new meaning i n the 20th ce ntury’s 20’s and 30’s, namely through sculpto r Alberto Sanchéz (1893 - 1962) o f wh o I will s peak about ahead, painter Be jamìn Palencia (1894 - 198 0) and the ir Madrid followers. . The se arch for an unco ntaminated national es sence based on archaic roots , in popu lar culture , and in the exper ience of nature are the basis of a regional - featured modernism . A mo dernis m which is rooted in t he l iv in g o f the South and its cultural trad it ion, and that have s imilar e xamples in Portugal, Ita ly and eve n Greec e. In the exploration of this idea, and as star ting point of this communication, I will look over two sc ulptors I chose more for their differ ences th en the ir sim i la r it ie s , s e e kin g t o un d e rl ine t h is m o de r nis m to wh ich I refe r that is profoundly p lural in it s o w n answers. The two chosen arti sts, M anolo Hu gué (1872 - 1945), frame d by historiography in the conce ptual principles of nouc entisme , and the already ment ioned Alberto S anchéz, usually linked to the surrealism and the 4 Torres- Garcia’s arti stic work is ofte n referred b y Eugeni d’Ors, the intellec tual f ather ( and inv entor of th e term) nouce nt ism e , not on ly in sev eral ar ticles, but also in his w ork “ La ben plantad a ” , a book whic h summariz es the ideo logy of t he nouce nti sme . Howe ver, To rre s - Gar cía had h is own th eoretica l elabora tion, explicit b ef ore the con figur ation of noucen tisme aroun d 1910 . See Su reda Pons, Joan. (199 8). Torres- García, Pasio n Clasica . Madrid: Edic iones Ak al. 5 See Peran, Martí [et al .]. (199 4). “Noucentisme y vanguardia”, In El No uce nti sme : un projec t e de moder nitat. Barce lona: General itat de Catalunya. 6 See C f. Boz al, Valeria no. (2001), C atálogo d e la ex posici ón Albert o 1895 - 196 2 . Madrid: Mus eu Nacional Cen tro de Arte Reina S ofia, p. 120. 7 Abou t this sc ulptor see M ilan i, A ntonio Sa lcedo [et al .]. ( 2002). Julio An tonio: 1889 - 1919. Madrid: Fundació n Gregorio Prieto. Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 19 abstract, repre sent the two sides of this modernism view that I intend to expl ore. The wo rk of these two sculptors is characterized by very dis s im ila r fo r ma l so lu t io n s, more so because the artists are of two differe nt generations. Manolo Hugué was born in 1872 in Barcelo na. He was a great adm irer of Joseph Lli mona (1864 - 1934 ) , a sculptor who was affiliate to Sant Lluc circle, which was founde d in 1893 and which fa vours the s eparation o f the South from the No rth and the re turn to M editerranean spirit. Manolo was one of Pic asso’s gre at friends. The y left for Par is in that same year, in 1900. Manolo stayed for a de cade, until moving to Ce ret, in the French Catalon ia, in 1910. The Mediterranean and arc haic s culpture impressed him during his visi ts to the Lo uvre, and it is a lso probable that he visited the anc ient Iberian sculptures e xhibition that the museum hoste d in 1905. His artistic cu lture was a re sult of his obse rvation. It was not fo rmed by any kind of erudite knowledge ne i ther hi s artistic skills were a result o f any ki nd of academic pract ice 8 Wheneve r he had the chance to expres s hi s thoughts in records he knew were to be made pub lic, he pre sented h imself as a rude man, with no h int of s o ph is t ic at ion , pr o v o ca t ive ly p r o v inc ia l. I b e lie v e it is wha t one c an obtain from sentenc es: “The smell of meat on the grill is better than a ll the luxury perf umes that they sel l in Paris.” o r “Fl owers are pretty, but let us not exagger ate. A c abbage, espec ially in the mo rning, with d ew drops (…) is as beautiful as a flower”, or e ven, “the sheep is the anim al I like mos t, if I co u ld I w o u ld always have three o r four shee p around me.” . 9 On t he other hand, i t seem s t o be the d efiant t one that stands out when he makes sure to poi nt o ut his i na pt itude and show himself co mpletely nonchalant about his art, prese nting it as the opposite of the virtuous, academic or noted artist (though he was noted ). I t is what h e expresses when he states: “Mo r éns said about poetry: - La poésie? Ça ne m’ i nte resse 8 Plá, José. (1 930). Vida de Manolo: contada por él mismo . Madrid: Mundo Lati no. 9 Idem, pp. 219 - 220. S ílvia V ieir a de A lmeid a, THE REDEMPTION OF THE VERNACULAR IN THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE MODER N: Two cases from the South: Mano lo Hug ué and Alber to Sanche z 20 pas… I say the s ame abo ut sculpture” o r “A rt is not an esse ntial thing and I do n’t nee d to sculpt t o be who I am (…) I make shapes and lines, I see movements and co lours, and, if I repres ent something it is be cause I am not completely stup id.” 10 On another perspective still, Manolo see ms to want t o compose his profile with a good dos e of ingenuity. It is what he manifests when h e states : “I don’t be lieve we came from the monkey. I f we had c ome from this animal we’d be painti ng landscape s. The grass pleases us and puts us i n a go od mood. In cas e we do come fro m something, we came from the cow and the ox.” 11 Like Manolo, Alberto had no fo rmal artistic educ ati on. H e was b orn in Tol edo and became a baker as his father. When he had h is first e xhibition in Madrid, in 1825 - The Ibe rian Arti sts Exhibition - , the pres s tal ke d about him extensively and praised his wo rk. Ev eryone was surprised: “But, you are a sculptor?” since then he started his career as an artist, at the age of thirty. All of the art ists that too k part of this I berian Art ists exh ibition then left fo r Paris, except fo r Alberto and Pal e ncia who decided to remain i n Madrid, with the deliberate purpo se of aris ing a new national art 12 . They initiated long walks through the f ield s , the capital’s s urro undings, intent ionally South, where the landscape was harsh, as opposed to the aristocratic North, wh ich ha d been a source of artistic inspiration s ince the 19 th C entury 13 The re union with rural, agrarian , nature was a way to re unite the Ca stilian esse nce with its origins. T he desc ription of these walks shows that there was something r itualistic in them, so mething magical and th ey bring to . 10 Idem , pp. 214, 223. 11 “Frase s d e Ma no lo Hugué ”, In Q uadern [Sabadel l]: els Amic s. Núm. 12 (gen - feb r . 1980), p. 27. 12 San chéz, Alberto. (197 5). Albert o Sanchéz: Palavras de um escultor. Val encia: Fernando Torres. 13 Cf . Bozal, Valer iano. (2 001 ), C atálogo de la e xp osición Alberto 1895 - 1962 . Ma drid: Mu seu Nac ional Cen tro de Arte R eina Sof ia, p. 120 . Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 21 mind Pau l Gaugin’s (1848 - 1930) te xt accounting how he wa lked, with an indigenous friend , in search of a tre e trunk to sc ulpt 14 Acco rding to the sculptor, from thes e walks in the field s , throug h the region of Vallecas, the idea was bo rn to create a new sc hool, the Escue la de Vallecas – a name refe rred only in 1860 . 15 As Manolo, also Alberto let him s e lf fascinate by archaic sc ulpture, namely the Iberian sculpture found in Cerro de los Santo s, which he v isited every tim e he could, since 1921, in the archeological Museum in Madri d. The simplicity of thes e figures and t he ir unpret entious form fasc inated him, as if they had been so wed by natu re it self . This idea “taken as true fanati ci sm”, made th e two artists beg in collecting stones , sticks, sand and any and all objects o f plastic quality. The “Monumento a los pájaros”, considered as a poetic manifesto of Vallecas, was a s culptural co nstruction made off of gathere d rocks, which A lberto abandoned to its fate, on “Ce rro Tes tigo”. 16 Also Alberto emphasi zes h is l ack of acad emics and his co ntempt for technical dexter ity and for the virtuos ity in the composition of sculpture. As he referre d, the Iberian s culpture, w ere “s culptural obj ects ( …) from others semi - illiterate as (he )”, reaso n by which the se objects prove d that in ar t, much cultur e and cra ftsmanship were less er things . For that sa me reaso n, he despised go od and bad opera s ingers, prefe rring the song of a man mounted on his little do nkey, cross ing hill s and valleys. Th is song was for . The fact that the y were of small scale but seeme d so gigant ic pieces , impr e ss e d him . T h is imp r e s sio n wo u ld be the mark in his work s – normally sma ll - scaled pieces, but often destined to monumental scu lptures. 14 See W ilkinson , Alan. (1983) . “Rodin, Ga ugu i n et l a génerat ion de Pi casso et Moore: du roma ntis me au primitiv isme” , in R odin et la sc ulptu re contem poraine . Compte ren du du colloqu e o rgan isé par l e musée Rodin du 11 au 15 octobre 1982 au Musée Rodi n. Paris , p. 129. Als o quoted by Alix Tr ueba, Josefina. (2001). Un nuevo ideal f igurativ o: la es cultur a en Espa ña 1900 - 1936 . Mad rid: Fundación Cult ural Mapfre Vida, p. 27. 15 See S anchéz, Alberto. ( 1975). Alberto Sanchéz: Palavras de um escult or. Valenci a: Fernando Torre s. 16 Sanchéz, Al be rto . (197 5). Alberto Sanchéz: Palavras de um escul tor. Vale ncia: Fernando Torres, p. 24 - 25. S ílvia V ieir a de A lmeid a, THE REDEMPTION OF THE VERNACULAR IN THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE MODER N: Two cases from the South: Mano lo Hug ué and Alber to Sanche z 22 him profoundly human, the sap of a peo pl e , capable of interfering i n the elements of nature ( the wind, the ro cks, the rivers, the c rops) 17 In 1960, spe ak ing of is pa th as a scu lptor, Alberto re ferred tha t it was h is main wish to creat e an art p last ically d ifferent from wha t all others comp o sed till then. Howe ver, when he observed his first drawings, fro m which he expecte d to create sculptures, it be gan clear that they repres ented fragments of women, anima ls, mingled hill s and country side an d he clearly understoo d that he would never be able to cre ate inexistent things. So he reassure d himself and sto pped resisting his search for his forms in the nature around him. In truth, he began to take a s urvey of these forms of the land, to try and c apture the sobriety and simp licity that the land of Castile transmitte d. . His sculpture is populate d by reference s to the rural and the country s ide: the birds, the bulls, the vineyards, the whe at fields, the rocks eroded by tim e 18 . T his sculpture wishes to be the p ro duct of a profound Castilian nature experience , a senso rial e xperience of the rural sett ing and popular culture: “Give shape to what you see in the field at five o’c lock in the morning…” 19 Li ke Albert o, Manol o chose, for h is art istic r esearches , sc enes of the wor l d around him, but w ith a d ifferent purpose. . Manolo dec lared that “sculpture is exc lusively form”. He wo uld not c once rn himself with meaning but rathe r be aware of the basic and pri mordial gesture o f sculpting, using to tha t purpo se the wo rld he chose to live in. Like he said: “When I want to work, I op en a w indow and I sc ulpt what I see in front of me. E v erything is admirab le.” 20 17 Idem. 18 Unfortun ately mo st of the earl ier sculp tures pro duced in th e thirties by Alberto have disapp eared. W hat w e have are lat er works fr om the fif ties and six ties produc ed during hi s exile in Moscow which are thought to be mu ch close to t he fir st ones. T hey are a synthes is of ani m al, vegeta ble and human forms, crea ted in recycle d material s, in clay and pla ster, and t hat capture subjects of rural life and the ex perience of natur e. 19 Azcoaga, Enrique. ( 1977). Alb erto. M adrid: Serv icio de P ublicacione s del M inisterio de Educac ión y Ciencia, p . 65. 20 Plá, José. (1 930). Vida de Manolo: contada por él mismo . Madrid: M undo Latino, p. 215. Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 23 The rural inhabitants of Ce ret’s world or the traditiona l bul lfights are the subject of hi s exercise of moderni sm, t h rough the depi ction of ori g i na l model s, geom e tr ic play and bo ld synthes is. In Cere t he lives surro unded by cubist art ists, with who m he is fr iend’s and interacts with. However, I do not agree that the presence of th e classic in Manolo’s work is just a forma l solution that he adopte d to correc t his i nability to acce ss to the theo retical speculations of the new tre nds 21 Maillo l’s sculpture “La medite rrané” portrays the nouce ntiste sculptural program; the so uthern al ternat ive to the northe rn romantici s m . I think the cubist re searches c learly did no t inte rest him. He was c loser to the French Catalan Maillo l (1861 - 194 4 ) , w ho s e inf lue n c e is v is ib le in M a no lo ’ s work , not only in the extensi ve volum es, often tim es monoli thic, but al so in the pre - c la ss ic a l in s p i r at io n. 22 He effec tively finds th is creative st imulus in the rural surround ings of Ce ret, but also in Caldas de Mo nbui i n Cata lonia, where he resides for long periods of time. He, so, keeps in regular contact with Barce lona and its inte llectual and artistic act ivity, a lso because he counte d among his fr iends the pa inter Joaq uim Sunyer ( 1874 - 1956) and the sculptor Enric Casano vas ( 1882 - 1948), two i mportant figures linked to the n ouc entisme . . Given this, Monolo was also closer to the “new artistic creatio n” that the noucentisme beli eve d co uld be nurtured by the rural and popula r culture of a region. Alberto found h is inspiration in the cou ntryside around M adrid; Mano lo found his in the rura l inhabitants o f Ceret’ s world. Alberto intended to provide t hrough h is sculptures a s timulus to the new ma n, g iv ing h im a new bre ath. Simultaneously, so me of his sculptures were thought to work as a kind of landmark, a link between the mode rn architecture around it and the popu lar and national ro ots. He had a po litica l agenda. He believed art could c hange the society. He be lieved his ar t could 21 Puig, Ar nau, “Dónd e debemo s s ituar a M anolo Hugué d entro de la plástic a catal ana?”, In Arte s Plástica s Barcelona. (1975 – A ny 1, nú m. 2), pp. 19 - 22 . 22 See d'Ors , Carlo s. (2000). E l Noucent isme: presupuest os id eológicos, estéticos y artí stic os. M adrid: Catera, p. 122 - 128. Carlos Bá r tolo, DAMNED W ORDS: The us e of Modern an d Regional as at tributes of folkl ore modernist rendition in sta g e a nd costume desi gn at the tu r n of the 1930's 30 Benoli e l. Part of these authors would be come associated , more or les s offi c ially, with the formulation of the new regi me cultural po l icy and its id entity definition. F rom them it's necessary to singl e out Antoni o Ferro 11 as the main character after his designati on as director of t he Secretar iado de Propaganda Nacional - SPN [National Propag anda Bureau] on 25 of September 1933. Due to the t im e coincid ence between the existence of O No tícias Ilustrado and Portugal 's political history it is possibl e throughout its pages to observe poli tical c ir cumstances 'coll ateral effects' on the more munda ne worl d: mainly the shift from a more progressive and cosmopolita n understand ing of the nation core interests, to an identi t y sear ch of new social , moral and politic values that the dictatorshi p w ould impl e ment with it's emergence. A cosmop olitan mag azine As stated before most of the magazi ne was about reporting the society modern urban character, that w as lost in the allure for ersatz fame and gl amour, so characteri stic of the 'roaring twenties': novel t ies were applaud ed, the foreign praised 12 , and the focus was on celebrities, f ir st and foremost the heroes and stars from the nati ona l and internati onal sport and entertai nment worl d. Therefor e O Notícias Ilustrado reported how everybody was rushing to 'premi éres' at Avenida to i do lize 'vamps', 'stars' 'cowboys' on cinema 'ecrans' [screens], whil e d iscussi ng how Hollywood 'stud ios' were the best 11 With 19 years old (1915) h e edi ted Orpheu , the avant-garde magazine that laid the Portuguese modernist movement foundations with Pessoa, Sá-Carnei ro and Almada, among others. While working as jo urnalists, Ferro wrote novels, poems and plays (some creating public outrage). As reporter he interview e d d’Annunz i o, Maurras, Pétain, Rivera, Mussolini, even H i tler, but also Cocteau, Mistinguett or Poiret. Politically h e began as a Republican Party sympathizer, e volving to the authoritarian modern Sidonists and th e Conservative Republicans, wh i le progressively admiring contemporary authoritarian regimes, especially Mussolini's. In 1932, interviewing Salazar, the p olit ical role of cu l ture was discussed; months l ater Salazar would invite him to create SPN . 12 As Du art e Ribeiro de Macedo, ambassadour secretary to the court of Louis XIV had said in 1675 ' For this helped the common error according t o which we [the Portuguese] perceive that everything that comes from abroad is th e best ' (Macedo, 1675 [1817], p.89). Southern Modernisms: critical stan ces throu gh regional appropriati o ns Conferen ce Pro ceedings. Porto, F ebruar y 19-21, 2015 31 produci ng movies full of 'trucs' [tricks]; the men adventur ed to stroll the streets wi thout hats, goi ng to vaudevill e theatre's 'matinées' an d 's oirées ' hopi ng to see 'divettes' at the 'foyers', whil e enj oyi ng 'scenas' [scen es, acts] where actress es and actors, sometim es in funny 'travestis', were top billing attractions; at the 'dancings', 'club s', 'bars', and 'casi nos' , appeari ng everywhere, 'j azz' of electrifying rhythm was listen, and Ameri can "distinctively sav age dances" (Ferro, 1928), like the 'c harleston', 'bla ck-bottom' or 'jive' danced; the chorus girl s were now known as 'girl s', and the athl etes as ' sportsmen', bei ng 'foot-bal l' and 'box' the most popul ar 'sports', and some 'goals' celebra ted as national events; ones and the others, the 'girl s' and 'sportsm en', appeared i n the 'clichés' [photos] of the 'magazi ne' news pages more bare than dressed announcing a new body-rel ated moral , where the beach suntanned and gymna st ic modell ed figur e re igned supreme. Ov erall, the dream of every 'midinette' [seamstres s] , 'dact ylo' [secretary, stenograp her] or 'vendeuse' [saleswom an], daily fantasising on movies and novels, was to secure on e 'chic' gentleman, impeccably wearing a 'frack' [tailcoat ], that could fulfil her wi sh of a luxuri ou s and frenzied 'high-li fe' 13 . The [ab]use of the foreig n words in writing s 14 was proof that what was normall y understood, and des ir ed, as fore ign was now viewed a s common insi de the country borders, and when that wasn't an accurate true, it could be exaggerated or even inv ented 15 . And so inventions, e lectri city, technol ogy, cinema, cars, airplanes and z eppeli ns, progress and ve locity , lu xury, newness, the fash ion and glamour were everywhere. F inall y it look ed li ke Lisbon was an i nternational c ity a nd Portugal a modern country. .. 13 All the words within single quotation marks in this paragraph were u sed that way — as their Anglo, American or Fren ch original or as an ada pte d version — in the middle of texts written in Portuguese at O Noticias Ilustrado , between 1927 and 1935. 14 The use of Anglicisms, many of t hem Americanisms, outdoing the use of Gal icisms was also a sign of an international cultural hubs shift, from the Fran co phone world to the Anglo-American one, denoting the beginning of the 20th c. supremacy of the popular mass culture. 15 As an example it could be men t ioned the imaginative reports -chronicles of Rein ald o Ferreira, known as Reporte r X, that described Lisbon or Oporto low-li fe at the fasc i nating level of any A me rican capital of gangster crime, following e xamples seen o n the cinema (Queirós, 1997). Carlos Bá r tolo, DAMNED W ORDS: The us e of Modern an d Regional as at tributes of folkl ore modernist rendition in sta g e a nd costume desi gn at the tu r n of the 1930's 32 A new The atre The entertainm ent world re igned supreme and the blooming Portuguese cinem a, with its meagre group of stars, had front page every t ime anythi ng relevant h appened 16 (this way challengi ng the European or Ameri can ind ustry present in al most every edition). Even th ough, the Portuguese theatre (more prolific i n pro ducti ons, com pan ies, rivalri es, stori es, 'scan dal s' and gossi ps ) was more recurr ent on the magazi ne pages. From 1925 onwards the Portuguese theatri cal revue 17 scene began to present some si gns of renova t ion and moderni ty 18 . These happened years after the Ballets Russes presentati on (1917-1918 ) in Li sbon 19 (neverthel ess still prese nt in the memory of many of the moderni st pl ayers), and after the thrill caused by the recent passage of the Spani sh theatre company Hermanos Velasco . Ex perimentally some moderni st arti sts 20 would work f or the atre stages li ke: Eduardo Malta in Tiroliro 16 The magaz i ne follo wed att entively the Portuguese cinema l ife as an o bvious sig n of modernity and another attempt to level up w i th the rest of the world. It goes without saying there was a predominance of reports of the movie s done by the magaz i ne director Leitão de Barros: the urban eulo gy documentary Lisboa, Crónica Anedótica (1930) — following Walter Ruttmann's Berlin: D ie Sinfonie der Großst adt [Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis] (1927) or Dziga Vertov's Chelovek s kinoapparatom [Man with a M o vie Camera] (1929) — , the 'f ake' ethnographical documentary Maria do Mar (1930) — closer to the work of Robert Flaherty — , and the historical and literary dramas A Severa (1931) — first Portuguese all-talking sound film — and As Pupilas do Senhor Reitor (1935). 17 Theatrical revue developed in the late 19th c. as a lig ht, lowbrow, fast-mo ving and sophisticated entertainment formed by a collection of sh o rt sketches, songs, dances, comic interludes and even short plays. This genre w ould differ from variety theatre in that the acts were linked by a t opical idea or theme growing in t ime the emphasis on wit and style rather than music an d spectacl e (Victoria & Albert Mu seum, 2014). 18 In part supported by a campaign of Antonio Ferro, in his Diári o de Notícias theatre review column, against the lethargy that reign on t he ' frozen and inexpressive [st ages] , twin brothers of chromolith ograph prints ' (cited by Santos, 2000, p.5). 19 Received on a mix of astonishment an d indi fference in the course of the Sidonist revolution mayhem, the influence of Diaghliev company would be perceived and admired only by part of the Portuguese intellectual elite more re ceptive to the vanguards’ experiments, nevertheless the con stant appearance of new s and reviews on Lisbon press (Castro, 2014). Several of the dan ce pl ays presented at Coliseu dos Recreios and S. C arlos Theatre were inspired in tales from the Slavic ethnography, a n influence revealed not only in the music score bu t also in the sets and wardrobe design: Les Danses polovtsiennes du Prince Igor (1909) with sets an d cost umes by Nicholas Roerich (Bowlt et al., 2009, p.116 - 119); Sadko (1911) by Boris An i sfeld and Natalia Gontcharova (op.cit., p.162 -167); and Le Festin (1909) and Thamar (1912) by Léon Bak st (Pritchard, 2010, pp.136 -137 e pp.8 e 71). Several photographs of Thamar da ncers in costume appeared in I lustração Portuguesa magazine ann o uncing the presentations (Ilustração Portuguesa, 1917). 20 Beside the 'pure' artistic practice most of these art ists worked f o r the graphic arts, advertisement or entertainment industries as a primary mean of support, shifting back an d Southern Modernisms: critical stan ces throu gh regional appropriati o ns Conferen ce Pro ceedings. Porto, F ebruar y 19-21, 2015 33 revue (1925); A lm ad a Ne grei ros for Chic-Chic (1925), Actualidades de XPTO (1927) (Santos, 1987, p.10), and, in tandem w ith Jo rge Barradas, in Pomada de Amor (192 6); and some others worki ng in more or less occasiona l collabora t ions between youn g arti sts and stage worl d 21 . The theatri cal revue manag ed to regenerate i tself in the middl e of appl aud and reacti onary indignati on. Água-Pé revue presented by the Luí sa Satanel a and Estevão Amarante compan y i n the Summer of 19 27 is understood as the first mainly 'modernist' play of this genre. T he play presented a music score by Frederico de Freitas, sets and costumes by José Barbosa and choreography by Franc is Graça (that for the first time, transform ed the decorativ e chorus girls in a real corps de ballet ). In 1928, after a commentary of Ferro referring to how the ' clothes have life and colour but speak too m uch Russian ' 22 (ci tado por Santos, 200 0, p.6), the pl ay was redone w ith a new opening of the second act. This scene was an im mediate success present ing a group of actresses dress ed as 'national provi nces' comi ng to greet a more cosmopoli tan Lisbon. Following earli er sporadi c experiences in thi s thematic, bo th the design of the backdrop curtai n a nd the dr esses freely adapted nati ona l folklore elements: from tradi tional costumes forms and features to iconogra phic details typical of Minho em broideries or Al cobaça printed chintz scarf s. This model would be repeated on other plays 23 but, but despi te their emergence and success, these folklori c acts continu ed to appear mingled forth from these different disciplines thus making the m permeable to each oth e r influences. 21 Briefly w orking as set or costume designers: An t ónio Soares, Leitão de Barros, Sarah Affonso, Raq uel Roque Gameiro , Jú lio de Sousa, Tom, Carlos B otelho, Stuart Carvalhais; and on a mo re constant routine: José Barbosa, Maria Adelaide Lima Cruz , Armando Bruno, António Amorim, Jorge Herold, Mário Gomariz, Laierte Neves and Pinto de Campos (Santos, 2000). 22 Ferro's critique of the foreign influence could be justified by the existence of an act entitled " Bonecos Russos " [Russian Dolls] where S atanela and Francis danced d ressed with 'traditional' Slavic costumes (Notícias Ilustrado, 1928b), probably inspired by the previous presentations of the Diaghliev company . 23 On José B arbo sa's costumes for the act Arredores de Lisboa , at A Rambóia revue (1928) (Santos, 2000, capa); costumes and sets by t he same author f o r Beiriz act — a true product placement of the Beiriz carpets company asso ciating, on the verses wr itten on the backdrop curtain, the Minho folkloric Vira dance and t he industrial pro duction — (Santos, 1985, p.8), and An tónio Soares´s set for the final number O Arraial Português , bot h from Chá de Pa rre ira revue (1929) (Santos, 1985, capa); sets and costumes by António Amorim for Riquezas de Portugal act at O Tremoço Saloio revue (1929) (Notícias Ilustrado, 1929f; Sa ntos, 2000, p.15), or Belezas de Sintra on Feira da Luz revue (1930) (San t os, 1985, Carlos Bá r tolo, DAMNED W ORDS: The us e of Modern an d Regional as at tributes of folkl ore modernist rendition in sta g e a nd costume desi gn at the tu r n of the 1930's 34 wi th others of a comp lete d iv erse character, a common situati o n in a theatre genre characteri se d as a series of unrelated independent musical, comedi c or dancing scenes that revi ewed the latest events, stories or fads 24 . Between girls more or less bar e, actors w ith w itt y remar ks and f unny up - to -date dial ogues and songs, glamorous and spectacul ar acts th at tried to copy the Broadway Ziegfeld Follies 's spi r it (or the Champs-Ely sée s varietés theatre and the most recent Holl ywood mus ical s ) and as the seasons gone by, a successi on of these merry popul ar fantasies were devel oped: with music and dance insp ired on the most cheerfu l national folkl ore ( viras , fanda ngos , corridinhos , etc. 25 ), carried by the m ost popular characters (li ke varinas [women fi shmongers] and saloi os [rural peasants of Lisbon outski rts] the ones nearest to the capi tal references) and presented on stage with costumes and sets th at stylised f o lk a r ts 26 . In reality since the earlier decad e the 'oxymoroni c' interest by the moderni st generation on elements from the vernacul ar wor ld — ' valued at that age through all Europe as an escape to the academic discipline ' (Raquel Henriques Silva about "Louça de Barcelos" by Eduardo Viana in p.26), where Maria Ade laide Lima Cruz would also collaborate (Notícias Ilustrado, 1930b); Armando Bruno's costumes f o r the singer Corina Freire in Nina del Portugal act fro m Maurice Chev al ier Parade du Monde revue, presented at Paris casino in 1937 (Santos, 2000, pp.12-13); and Jorge Herold's work for Santo António está no Trono act of Fan farra revue (1938) (Santos, 2000, p.17). The titles of the acts, and ev e n of some plays , also addressed popular terms, themes and references. 24 As an example of th is mixture, on Canti ga Nova revue (1933) the act entitled with the same name an d a dancing duet act were inspi red in the nati onal folklore. Nevertheless other act designated Habane ra was of Andaluzian flamenco inspiration; another presented oriental exotic costumes; tw o more were done according to Hollywood mu sical models, one of them an amo rous dancing duet in the Astaire manner; there was an o ther in a romantic neo-rocaille mood and one last, the ' curious number «Good by boy» ' (Notí cias Ilustrado, 1933a), with Luísa S at anela and all the girl s in Dietrich style travesti. 25 Eugénio Salvador (in a d ancing duet with Lina Duval as Lina & Salvador) and Francis (famous for his duet with Ruth Wal den) would creat e repertoires based on traditional dances that were presented, o riginally, in revu e theatre or cinema 'live complements' (during movies intermissions) an d lat ter in autonomous p erformances that would contribute to the popularization of dance as an art in itself and eventually the elevation of the male dancer role (Santos et al., 1999; Chiaradia, 2011). 26 On s erious dramatic arts the vernacular references were used every time the narrative required it, but never in a stylised or distorted manner, trying to be more respectful to the authentic. As a n example Maria do Mar movie by Leitão de Barros (1930) dubbed "A documentary of the race " (Not ícias I l ustrado, 1930a) or Abílio sets and costumes to Tá Mar play by Alfredo Cortez, presented at D. Maria II National Theatre by the Ro bles Monteiro Rey Colaço Company (1936) (Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1990, pp.36 -37), both stories centred on th e adverse lives of Nazaré fishermen. Southern Modernisms: critical stan ces throu gh regional appropriati o ns Conferen ce Pro ceedings. Porto, F ebruar y 19-21, 2015 35 Fundação De Serralves et al. , 1992, p.90) — had mad e possi b le th e release fr om classical clutch, allowed by a research of naï ve (and to a certai n extent exotic) archetyp es and the devel opment of new ' exercises of formal and colour schemes, e nabling also the broadening of them es and a revolution on Art mem ories through the contact with popular aesthetic ' 27 (op.cit.). At the Portuguese theatri ca l revue and u sing the same references and analy tic-syntheti cal methods (distant from their primeval veracity or thei r nobl e aesthetic exploratory reasons and oblivi ous to possible wrongful mixtu res, provenances, or misrep resentation), the modernist arti sts pl ainly reduced the genuine or igi na l materials, proportions, c olour s or features to a co llection of depurated decorativ e element s . These were used and recombi ned by the art ist’s whim, eventually with other diverse and odd references (from foreign folklore to modern expressi onist or even abstract references) as fanciful decorative element s on more mundan e objects. Consequ ently, under a dreamy noti on of tradi t ion, these adul terated references were cheerfully prese nted to the urban masses that, through this, identi f ied themselves with an era or place not that di stant but right now inv a riably pretty and joyful. This fondness ( mi x of pride and nosta lgi a) for theses faultless national p ictu resque reinvented fantasi es 28 , was int erpreted as 'modern ' when compared wi th the stagnant classi c styles and the moul dy historical strictness of a countr y 'geneti ca ll y' 27 Since the 19th c. the atte mpt to escape the academic clu tch induced, all through Europe, artists to search inspiration on their local ver nacular roots, or even on civilizations outside the classical western worl d, thus the immersion on late medieval or japan ese art by the En g lish Pre-Rafelists or the French Nabis; a general enchantment for Oriental, African or several other indigenous people arts; the re search on ru ral vernacular origins done by many European architects; a similar research on vernacu l ar forms and productio n methods by the Arts and C rafts desig ners; the rediscovery of national folklore s that provoked a renovation of European music and dance (being the Ballets Russes a major example); and the interest on p opular arts artefacts by many of the avant -garde artist s. In Portugal, this leaning produced not only the discussion around th e Casa Portuguesa [Portuguese House] (1880's o nwards), as consequences of it were perceived earlier on works of E d uardo Viana, Amadeu de Sousa Cardoso, Almada Negreiros, and on work of artists from the following generation like Bernardo Marques, Jorge Barradas, Carlos Botelho, or the older Emmerico Nunes. 28 This theatrical interpretation and adaptation of tradit ions supposedly popular or re gional could be, in part, behind the creation of n e w 'old traditions' like the Marchas dos Bairros / Marchas Populares , the popular parades created during the 1930's throu gh the municipal festivities commission, and the suppo rt of O Not ícias Ilustrado , Diário de Lisbo a and Parque Mayer administrat ion, as part of the city annu al fe stivities, developed to happen through June, on the eve of the popular St. A nthony day (Not ícias Ilustrado, 1932b, 1935b). Carlos Bá r tolo, DAMNED W ORDS: The us e of Modern an d Regional as at tributes of folkl ore modernist rendition in sta g e a nd costume desi gn at the tu r n of the 1930's 36 defeati st and subservient to foreign influences. Associated to the moderni st thought, its reference sources weren't that important, thus its 'regiona l' or 'popular ' origins dismissed, a nd only the outcome ori ginality or its developing methods were announced and sublimated as a sign of its own moder nity a n d of this discont inuity w ith [aca demic] tra d itions. A New S tate The resour ce use of vernacul ar as an inspi rat ion by the moderni st artists was done as a reaction to the ser iousness severi ty of the academic world and the progr ess-ri dd en society . Neverthel ess t he rescu e of thi s guil e less element s from ages of being treated condescendi ngly as products of the rude and ignorant pe ople was or igi nally do ne free of a political agenda ( at least an official one) . Obvi ously, it shouldn't be forgotten that the Romanti c ism reacted aga inst the classicism restrai nt and rejected the En li gh tenment rati onalism emphasising the prima cy of the individual an d thus cradli ng the growth of nati ona li st yea rni ngs . This would be ulti mately fructifi ed by the incessan t socio poli t ical and economi c belli gerent state of affai rs that the weste rn worl d sustained bey ond the Great War. In Portugal, in the final decades of the 19th century, a nationali sm consciousness par tially lead to the appearance of ethnographi c studies, even if their results would only become manifest on the second decade of the following century. Officially, the varied government s had continue to favour the glorifi ed styles associ ated wi th the nation historical grandness peri ods (the chaste Romanesque of the Reconque st, the exu berance of the Discoveri es Manueli ne, or the opulence of the baroque Joani ne a ge) thus perpetuati ng an academ ic histori ca l stance and refusi ng to prai se, or even acknowl edge, the simpl e peasant's production, understood as the work of the illit erate overl ooked by the domineeri ng globalised civiliz at ional progress. With the outcome of the coup d’état in 28 of M ay 1926 and the emergence of the ul tra-right regime Portugal, like similar contemporary regi mes, inflam ed its aut onomi c and nationali st principles dutifull y Southern Modernisms: critical stan ces throu gh regional appropriati o ns Conferen ce Pro ceedings. Porto, F ebruar y 19-21, 2015 37 campai gning against the 'intern at ionali sms ': either political (communism , sociali sm or liberal-democracy), eco nomi c (capitalism), moral (atheism, indivi dualism) or of social posture (progress, moderni ty, cosmopol itanism ). Fo r the new regi me 'm odern' was a bad word ( as bad as many others from the 'modern' progres sive world ) and to some extent id entified itself with the motto of the ephemeral political ri ght -w ing magazi ne Ordem Nova [N ew Ord er] ( 1926 - 1927) anti -modern, anti-lib eral , ant i-democra ti c, anti-bour geo is and anti- bolchevi k, counter-revol utionary; reactionary; catholi c, apostolic and roman; monarchi c; int o lerant and uncompr omising; unsymp ath iser wi th wri ters, journalists and any professional o f the lett ers, arts and pr ess (Ordem Nova, 192 6- 1927) The nati ona l values exaltati on , formed o n their mythical or igi ns, would promote the celebr ati on of Portugal 's history and uniqueness, allowing, from now on, th e [r e ]discovery of folk arts as the, now honoured, inn oce nt expressi on of the Portuguese peopl e character, the found ing basi s of the nat ion. This po licy would be strongly supported by Anton io Ferro's consi dered concer n on na tional cul t ural a nd ar t istic development The Art and Literature conscious and deliberated development is, after all, as needed to a nation progress as i ts sciences, publi c infra structur es, industry , commerce and agriculture development. [...] T he Política do Espírit o [Policy of the Spiri t 29 ] [...] it's not just necessary, al though of the utmost im portance in such poi nt of v iew, to the Nation's outer presti ge. It's also necessary to its inner presti ge, its reason to subsist. A country that do esn't see, read, listen, fee l, doesn't wal k out of its material life, becomes a useless and b ad-tempered country. (Ferro, 1932) This question, prev iously d iscussed with Sala zar ( during the 1932 Diário de Notícias 's interviews), would found the program that Ferr o officially devel oped at the hea d of SPN in 1933, envisaged as more than a mere 29 Ferro mentioned the homologous conference presented just days before by Pa ul Valéry at the Université des Annales , November 15th of 1932, " La politique de l'esprit, notre souverain bien " (later published in 1936). Carlos Bá r tolo, DAMNED W ORDS: The us e of Modern an d Regional as at tributes of folkl ore modernist rendition in sta g e a nd costume desi gn at the tu r n of the 1930's 38 propaga nda department . There, he would establish culture as one of Nati on 's prioriti es and so the ethnograp hical stud y of folk arts was conscienti ously developed, promoted and reconfi gured. The friendlier and more approach able p opul ar cu ltu re, or its somewhat [in]dir ect outcomes, was offici ally presented as a valua b le alter native to an aloof erudit e cultu re, customary hei r of internati ona l i nf luences. In SPN with Ferro woul d collaborate ' a bunch of lads, full of talent and vi gour that wait, anxiously, to be useful to their Country! ' (Ferro, 1932b : 59), most of them Ferro's old modernist comrades 30 . Th is official search for the regi ona l genuine, this return to the roots ( or thi s creati on of re- inv ented ones) woul d be done mai nl y by this group, and was fundamental to the formul ation and promoti on of the regim e values and ideals, supporti ng the creati o n of a 'N ew' State — not 'modern' any more. Those da mned wor ds Duri ng the f irst years on O No tícias Ilust rado pages the word 'modern' was a common attri b ute to alm ost everything: from a new inv ention to a new haird o or any other momentary fad. But it was used, obviously , to id entify modern a rchitectur e 31 , modern cinem a 32 , modern th ea tre or 30 Among the team of artistas-decoradores [artists-decorators] , respon sible for most of the regime initiatives, were Bern ardo Marques, Carlos B o telho , Eduardo Anah ory, Emmérico Nunes, Estrela Faria, José Rocha, Manuel Lapa, Maria Keil , Fred Kradolfer, the N o vais brothers, Paulo Ferreira, and Tom (T homás de Mello). Working with these lads numerous activities were developed: several popular competition s; the creati on of theatre and ballet companies; traveling cinema an d libraries services; diverse edito rial lin es (from tourism guides and art catalogues to propaganda p amphlets in v arious languages); an extensive program of national prizes; the development of an ethnographic collection presented all around the world (housed since 1948 in the now d efunct Museu de Arte Popular [Popular Art Museum]); the production of a large nu mbe r of exhibitions; and the significant task of presenting Portugal abroad in different events and media. 31 Erich Mendelsohn IG Metal building in Berlin and Schocken department store in Chemnitz; Fritz H ö ger's Ch ilehaus and Sprinkenhof , Schoch, zu Pu t litz and Klophaus's Mohlenhof , an d Gerson bro ther's Ballinhaus in Kontorhau sviertel area of Hambu rg ; Mallet- Stevens street in Paris; Pau l Tournon's Église de Sainte-Thérèse - de -l'En fant-Jés us in the outskirts of Paris (presented as the f i rst modern reinforced concrete chu rch ) ; and several articles and interviews of th e Portuguese modernis t architects as Carlos Ramos, Crist ino da Silva, Pardal Monteiro, Cottinelli Telmo, Jaco betty Rosa, etc. 32 In t erview and reports on Fritz Lang movies ( Met ropolis and Frau im Mond [Woman in the Mooon]), Murn au (Auro ra), Abel Gance (Napoleon) an d various russian directo rs: the revolutionary Eisenstein's Staroye i novoye [The General Line], Vsevolod Pudovkin Potomok Chingiskhan a [Sto rm over Asia] and V i ktor Tourjansky's Wolga Wolg a [Volga Volga]), with an art icle by António Lo pes Ribeiro explaining the greatness soviet Southern Modernisms: critical stan ces throu gh regional appropriati o ns Conferen ce Pro ceedings. Porto, F ebruar y 19-21, 2015 39 dance 33 and modern arts 34 in genera l, permanentl y reported w ith a more or less accurate use of the term i n the context of the actual d efini t ion or characteri zation of th e arts movement s. A number of the magaz ine, published on 24 of February 1929, was alm ost compl etely devoted to the Portuguese modern/moder nist scene with diverse articles and photographi c essays on the different arts. Curi ous ly, the cover would present Rapaz das Louças [The Pottery Boy], a 1919 pai nt ing by Eduardo Viana on an almost Orphist style (influenced by his friendsh ip w ith the Delaunay couple) depi ct ing a county fair seller, surrounded by pottery, holding a painted cla y figurine whistl e in the shape of a p a ir of bull s , typical of Barce los p opular arti sans. In the insid e pages t here were: a text about the Portuguese f uturi sts by Felicia no Santos; portrai ts of the precursors of the modernism in Portugal 35 ; photos of the principle contemporary modernists sc ulptor s, pai nters, architects, p oets and writers; repr esentati on of two 1913 'cubist' pai nt ings by Santa-Rita P intor and Sousa-Cardoso (both deceased in 191 8); poems by A lmada Negreiros (illustrated by himself) and Augusto Santa Ri ta (w ith a Cottineli Telmo's ill ustration); an article on the moderni st paintings for the Seville Exp osition of 1929 by Jorge Barrada s, Li no Antón io and Abe l Manta; a page with several exampl es of moderni st int er iors 36 ; and, last but not l east, an article about modern art in theatre presenti ng sets by Antóni o Soares and Leitão de Barros w ith Martins cinematographic experience bu t also its necessary censorship to the national audience. About Portugal there were reports on Leitão de Barros's mo vies, obvio usly, A nt ónio Lop es Ribeiro, Chianca de Garcia, but also about the e xperimental Douro Faina Fluvial of Manoel de Oliveira or on Artur Cos ta Macedo's documentaries. 33 In a country with an almost inexistent dance scene all the new d ancers or choreographers, which app e ared with a ru sh of fresh air and a scen t of contempo ran eity, even if ju st importi ng the last trends from the musical theatre world, were imm e diately called 'modern'. 34 The Portugu ese modernist art would hav e more space than the foreign counterparts, from the fine arts to literatu re and poet ry: from the 'l eader s' Almada Negreiros and Fernando Pessoa (and Ál varo de Campos, one of his pseudonyms) to many ot hers contemporary or younger (like Sarah A ffonso, José Tagarro, An tónio Botto, Tom, etc.) with articles reporting exhibitions o penings, editions or just praisin g their work. 35 Almada Negreiros, José Pach eco , Amadeu de S o usa Cardoso , San t a -Rita Pintor, Mário de Sá Carneiro, Raul Leal, A lfredo Pedro Gu i sado, António Ferro, and four rep eated Fernando Pessoas, as h i mself and his three pseudonyms. 36 The pan e ls of Almada and Jorge Barradas to Café B rasil eira mentioning the other artists present, the Bernardo Marques's frieze in António Ferro's apartment illustrating f olklori c dancers, an d Carlos Ramos's decoration of Bristol nightclub with works by Ernesto do Canto, An tónio Soares and Almada. Carlos Bá r tolo, DAMNED W ORDS: The us e of Modern an d Regional as at tributes of folkl ore modernist rendition in sta g e a nd costume desi gn at the tu r n of the 1930's 46 Macedo, D.R. (1675 [1817 ] ). Di scurso I [sobre a Int rodução das Art es]. In Cami nha, A.L. - Obras Ineditas de Duarte Rib eiro de Maced o: dedicadas ao muito Alto e Poderoso S enhor D on João VI, Rei d os Rein os Unidos de Portu gal, Brazi l, e Algarves por Ant ónio Lo urenço Caminh a . Li sboa: Impressã o Régi a. p. 89 . Notíci as Ilustrado (1928 a ). Arti stas Modernos . O Notícias Ilustrad o . Lisboa: Empresa Naci onal de Publ icidad e. vol. I (series II), 21 (4 N ov. 1928). p. 12. _ (1928b ). Espectácul o: Agua- Pé. O Notícia s Ilustrado . Lisboa: Emp resa Naci onal de Publi cidad e. vol. I (series I) , 2 (1 Abr. 1928) . p. 12. _ (1928c ). Franci s, um g rande bail arino portug uês. O Notícia s Ilust rado . Li sboa: Empresa Naci onal de Pu bli cidade. vol . 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Li sboa: Empresa Naci onal de Pu bli cidade. vol . II (series II), 79 (15 Dez. 1929). p. 5. _ (1930a ). Ci nema Port uguez: Um docum entári o da raça. O Notícias Ilu strado . Lisboa: Emp resa Naci onal de Publ icidad e. vol . II (seri es II), 100 (11 Mai . 1930). pp. 4- 5. _ (1930b ). Os figuri nos modernistas de Maria Adel aide Lima Cruz e Ant óni o Amorim. O N otícias Ilust rado . Li sboa: Empr esa Naci onal de Publi c id ade. vol . II (series II), 86 (2 Fev. 1 930). pp. 20 -21. _ (1930c ). Uma r evolução no T eatro Portuguê s: Os Dit adores das P ernas. O Notícias Ilustrad o . Li sboa: Empr esa Naci onal de Publi cidade. vol. II (seri es II), 92 (16 Mar. 1930) . pp. 12- 13. _ (1932a ). Franci s acabou de crea r notavei s bail ados com músi ca de Frederi co de Freitas. O N otícias Ilustr ado . Lisboa: Emp resa N acional de Publi cidade. vol. V (series II), 227 (16 Out. 1932). pp. 12 -13. _ (1932b ). Os Santos Popul ares: um g rande concurso de marchas p opu lares no Parque May er. O Notícia s Ilustrad o . Li sboa: Em presa Naci onal de Publi cidade. vol . V (series II), 208 (5 Jun. 1932 ). p. 15. _ (1933a ). "Canti ga No va", a grande r evista do Pol it eama: O públi co quere espectácul os alegres. O Notícias Ilustrad o . Li sboa: Empre sa Naci onal de Publi cidade. vol. V I (series II), 257 ( 14 Mai .1933) . pp. 10-11 . Southern Modernisms: critical stan ces throu gh regional appropriati o ns Conferen ce Pro ceedings. Porto, F ebruar y 19-21, 2015 47 _ (193 3b ). Uma grand e nota de Arte Mode rna: Franci s e Ruth. O Notícias Ilustrado . Li sboa: Empr esa Nacional de Publi cidade. vol. V I (series II), 257 (14 Mai.193 3). back cover . _ (1934a ). O Fim d o Mund o no Coli seu: o grande exi to da actual i dade, a super fantasi a de 1934. O N otícias Ilustrad o . Lisboa: Empresa Naci onal de Pu bli cidade. vol. VII (seri es II), 335 (11 Nov.1934). pp. 14 -15. _ (1934b ). Os grandes bai larinos Franci s e Ruth vol taram do Rio e vão em breve para Pari s. O Notícias Il ustrado . Lisboa: Empr esa Naci onal de Publi cidade. vol. V II (series II), 334 (4 Nov.19 34). p. 8. _ (1934c ). Portugal no Est rangeiro. O Notícia s Ilu strado . Li sboa: Empresa Nacional de Publi cidade. vol . VII (seri es II), 307 (2 9 Abr.1934). pp . 12- 13. _ (1934d ). Uma grande decoradora d e Teatr o: Maria Ad elaide Li ma Cruz vai expôr em Pari s. O Notíci as Ilustrad o . Li sboa: E mpresa Naci onal de Publi cidade. vol. VII (seri es II), 311 (27 Mai .1934). pp. 4 -5. _ (1935a ). Sardi nha Assada: um a grand e revista popu l ar no Teatro Vari edades. O Notícias Ilustrad o . Li sboa: Empr esa Naci onal de Publi cidade. vol. V III (series II), 381 (29 Set.1935) . p. 1 7. _ (1935b ). Vão reviver as Ma rchas Popul ares. O Notícias Ilustrad o . Li sboa: Empresa Naci onal de Pu bli cidade. vol . VIIII (s eri es II), 353 (17 Ma r.1935). pp . 14 -15. _ (1935c ). Zé dos P acatos n o Apolo. O Notícia s Ilustrado . Li sboa: Empresa Nacional de Publi cidade. vol . VIII (seri es II), 343 (6 Jan.1935). pp. 12 - 13. Ordem Nova. (192 6-19 27 ). Ordem Nova . Lisbo a: [s.n.]. vol. 1, 1-12 (d e Jan. 1926 a Fev. 1927) Pires, D. (1986 ). Di cion ário das Revistas Literár ias Portugu esas do Sécu lo XX . Lisboa: Conte xto Edi tora. _ (1996 ). Dicionári o da Imprens a Periódica Literária P ortuguesa do Século XX (1900- 1940). Li sboa: Grifo, Edi tores e Livr eiros Lda. Pritchard, J., ed . (2010 ). Diaghilev and th e Golden Age of the Ballets Ru sses 1909 - 1929 . London: V & A Publ ishi ng. Queirós, L.M. (1 997 ). Repórter X, Rei nal do Ferreira nasceu há um sécul o: Memórias de um repórt er. Públi co . (10 Ag o. 1997) . Ri vero , Á. (2010 ). Salazar and Chari smatic Lead ership: Cath olic Nationa lism and the Portugu ese New State [i n line]. London: The London S chool of Ec onomi cs and Politi cal Science. [Consu l t. 20 Mar. 2012]. A vai labl e at WWW: <url: http://www2.l se.ac.uk/researchAn dExperti se/unit s/ASEN/Conferen c e/confer encepapers2010/ Angel _Ri vero .pd f%3 E. Rosas, F. (198 9 ). A cri se do Liberali smo e as ori gens do «Autori tarismo Modern o» e do Estado No vo em P ortugal. Penélope, Faz er e Desfaz er a História [i n li n e]. Lisboa: Coope rativa Pen élope; Quetz al Edi tores. 2 (Fev . 1989) pp. 98 -1 14. [Consul t. 26 Mar. 2012]. Avai labl e at WWW: <url: http://www.penel ope.ics.ul.pt /indi ces/penelope_02/02_08_FR osas.pdf%3E . Santos, V.P. (1985 ). Ge nte do palco: a s colecçõ es do Museu . Li sboa: MC / IPPC / Museu Naci onal do Teatro. Carlos Bá r tolo, DAMNED W ORDS: The us e of Modern an d Regional as at tributes of folkl ore modernist rendition in sta g e a nd costume desi gn at the tu r n of the 1930's 48 _ (1987 ). A Comp anhia Rey C olaço Roble s Monteiro (1921 - 1974) . Li sboa: MC / IPPC / Museu Nacional do Teatro. _ (2000 ). A Revista M od ernista . Li sboa: IPM, M useu Naci onal do Teatro . Santos , V .P., coord. ; M useu Naci onal do Teatro (19 99 ). Verde Gaio: U ma companhia po rtuguesa d e bailado (1940 - 1950) . Lisboa: IPM / Museu N acional do Teatro. Tengarri nha, J. (1965 ). História da Impr ensa Periódica Portugu esa . Li sboa: Portugál ia Editora. Vi ctoria & Albert Museu m (2014 ). Theatrical R eview . [in line] London: Vi ctoria & Al bert Museum. [Consul t. 24 Jan. 2015]. A vail abl e at WWW: <url: http://www.vam.a c.uk/content /articl es/t/theatrical -revue / %3E. Author id en tificati on Carlos Bártolo teach es Design at Univ ersidade Lusíada (Lisbon ) since 1995 . A graphic design er [ESBAP] with a mast er degree in Equipment De sign [FA UP], he centers his studie s in th e Portuguese D esign His tory field, resea rching the De sign object as commun ication support, especial ly in extrem e political sph eres . https:/ /lis-u lusiada.academia. edu/carlosbá rtolo 49 SOUTHERN MO DERNIS MS D EFAULT M ATERIALITY OF WHITENESS AND ITS CONN ECTION T O THE INTERNA TIONAL STYLE Susan ne Bauer The London Con sortium, University of Lond on London, UK Abstract The terminol ogy of t he expression of the ‘modern’ i s frequentl y attached to c haracteristi cs such as ‘rational ’, ‘ut ilitari an’, ‘functi onal ’, ‘cl ear’, ‘cl ean’, ‘mini mal’ or ‘effici ent’. Th e c olour whi te – i ncessantly and convenientl y li nked to al l these characteristi cs – seems to be both th e p roduc t an d the expressi on of a s elf -conscious Moderni sm and whi teness thus becom es its def aul t materiali ty. Thi s alleged default materiali ty of whiteness is in the centre of the di scussion of the classi fication of one m o dernist styl e such a s cl assifi ed i n the Internati onal Style versu s di ffer ent M oderni sms. Th e in vestigati on in to the wh i teness of M oderni sm therefor e serv es as a tool into the overa ll analysi s of the change of di fferent modern archi tectural desig n lan guages wi thi n cult ures and ti mes . Th e wh i teness us ed in th e archi tecture of South ern Europe i n th e mi d - 20 th century th erefore di ffers i n i ts purpose a nd usage to an internati onal style l anguage us ed i n the US and mi gh t equally be seen as a cha racteristi c of i ts r egional and vernacular styl es as w ell as derived out of vari ous i nflu ences of architectural h istori es. In the case of Alvar o Si za the cont in uity as w ell as i ts connecti on to an i nt ernational design l anguage is qu estioned though hi s di verse p rojects as w ell as hi s many in fluence s and hi s relati on to continui ty and change. Keywords: Moderni sm, Internationa l Style, Whi te, Alvaro Si za Essay The i dea of M odernity has al ways b ee n accom panied by a noti on of vi sual sim p licity . Philosopher s, h istori ans and critics tent to employ ter ms lik e ‘rational ’, ‘utili ta rian’, or ‘functional ’ to describ e the modern movement. In recent decades these have been sup plemented by more specific terms like ‘hygieni c’, ‘c lear’, ‘clean’, ‘minimal’ or ‘effi c ient’. In all this, the colour wh ite see ms to be both the product and th e expression of sel f-conscious Moderni sm. The argum ent about whiteness in architecture overl aps with the argument about ornament . One could argue that the prohibition of ornament woul d essentially mean the aboliti on of appli ed colour, that a modernist bu ildi ng shou ld stand undressed in a mode of li tera l honesty. Ornamentati on , lik e colour, should be swept away by a revol utionar y inaug uration of transparency. Paradoxi ca lly , t he sign for th is transparency is the colour wh ite. The confusion upon which th is p art of the narrativ e rests is the confusion about colour and ornament on the one side Susanne Bau er, SOUT HERN MOD ERNISM S DE F AULT M ATERIALI TY OF WHITE NESS AND I TS CONNECTI ON TO THE INTE R NATIONAL STYLE 50 and the colour white on the other. Its protagoni sts treat both colour and ornament ati on as ways of dressing a building. A coat of paint is just t hat – a coat. On the other side, to regard white as not an orname nt (dressi ng) the protagoni st has to de ny that wh ite is a colour. White is c learl y bei ng used as not only a symbol but a symb ol of a non-existent object - no dressi ng! The very clear logi ca l contradicti ons here are no obstacl e to the public sen se that a white buildi ng w ith a flat ro of and plain walls is not only a moderni st b uil d ing but which corresponds to the overall demand s of Moderni sm itself. This alleged ‘ default materi ality ’ of whiteness is i n the centre of the di scussion of the cla ssificat ion of di fferent Moderni sms. In White Walls, Designer Dresses: The Fashi oning of Modern Architectu r e , M ark Wig l ey (1995: xiv) states that the white that ‘ was successfully dissemi nated to an int ernational aud ience ’ was only the surface of the architectu re itsel f but that thi s surface similarly defined the architecture of Modernism . That surface becomes the defini ng element of modern archi tecture and has to be first of all clean sed of all excessive e lements hi ndering it to be seen as the pure surface – or, indeed, architecture - itsel f. This c lean sing process is linked to the removal of all decoration, which started in the mid-19th century by such adv ocates as Adol f Loos. Accordi ng to Wigley, an architectur e with out decorat ion would ultimately lead to the “naked wall” (1995: 2) ‘ This erasure of decoration is portray ed as the necessary gesture of a civilized soc iety . Indeed, civili zation is defined as the elimi nation of the “superf luous” in favour of the “essenti al” and the paradi gm of the i nessential surpl us is decorati on. ’ In Wigl ey’s argument it is also precisely this import ance of the white surface that all ows for a “ n ew ki nd of space” to be defi ned, as he is quoted (1995 , 3) ‘ The look of moderni t y is that of utility perfected, function without excess, the smooth object cleansed of all representati onal texture. ’ Wi gley’s argument of the white wall as the ultimate d efini ng element of modern archi tecture de velops out of his argum entat ion of a connection of fashi on and archi tecture. He puts fashion into a di rect re lati on with archi tecture arguing that modern architecture is precisely defi ned by the consci ous exclusion of fa shi on and thus fashion becomes an Southern Modernisms: critical stan ces throu gh regional appropriati o ns Conferen ce Pro ceedings. Porto, F ebruar y 19-21, 2015 51 int egra l part of modern archi tectural design as no discourse can isolate itself from fashi on . Wigley (1995, 3 7) argues that modern architecture was expli c itly la unched against fashion, and its white surfaces pla yed a key role in that attack. ’ Modern archi tecture becomes the anti-fa shion look of architectur e and the whi te wall b eco mes the me ans to a chieve that. In White Walls, Designer Dr esses – The Fashi oning of Modern Architectu re , wha t emerged from the debates about resi st ing a fashiona ble look, at the end, is the stri pp ing down of the clothing of the building to the bare minimum, the essential, naked look of the buil d ing, the white su rface. The link between fashi on and archi tecture, is not only achieved by modern architectu re’ s aim to be timel ess - or the anti-fashi on look for Wigl ey - or by the methaphor of the connection between dress - desig n and dressi ng the sur face wall of a bu ilding but a lso by its close connecti on to fashi on, which Wigley argues deri ves out of the reform agai nst fashion. 1 Accordi ng to Wigl ey (1995, 161ff) ‘a ny anti -fashion that attempts to esta blish a ti meless style is a lways itself a f ashi on statement… The very idea of being modern cannot be detached from fashion. What could be more fashi onable than the d esire to be m odern? ’ This creation of the modern fashion image i s a lso ref lected upon by Beatriz Colomi na who argues in Privacy and Publicity: Modern Archi tecture as M a ss Media that Moderni ty was created by the i mage itself rather than the functi ons and mechanism that go into creati ng the art object. T he state of the “modern” i s therefore a represent ation and this modern representati on goes as far as being produced by the im age, and thus the mass media , itself. She poi nts out that the wi despread pub li ca tion of The Interna tional Style wa s in fact the generator of this im age, rather than t he travelli ng exhibition itself, for wh ich th e publ icati on was created. The accompany ing book had, in fact, such an i mpact tha t the exhi bition is known under the nam e of the publicati on, rather than what it actually was call ed: Modern Archi tecture: Internationa l Exhibit ion . Colomina (1994 , 207ff) states th at 1 Wigley argues that if modern arch i tecture is truly a form of clothing reform, it cannot resist fashion as re forms tend to become fashions and reforms are equally carried out by fashion. Susanne Bau er, SOUT HERN MOD ERNISM S DE F AULT M ATERIALI TY OF WHITE NESS AND I TS CONNECTI ON TO THE INTE R NATIONAL STYLE 52 ‘I f the Internati onal Style is to be thought of as a publ icity campaign for modern architecture, this publicity was aimed at a public much la rger than that whi ch ‘can afford art’… It is not j ust the house tha t is for sal e in these promoti ons… The Inter nati onal Style publicized the priva te… It off ered that imag e for m ass consumpti on.’ It was the image of this style that h as since been attached to a perceived modern archi tecture and whi ch is still used in a minimalist styl e of today, seeking to sell a life-style as much as an archi tectural des ig n. Althoug h it is granted that the all-white image of modern buildings was supported by the black- and -white photograp hic image that formed the symbolic white of the modern architectur e itsel f. Le Corbusier, to thi s day, is still regarded as the foundi ng fathe r of modern archi tecture and thus his architecture i s often considered as all- white. However, Le Corbusier’s extensi ve research int o pol ychrome ar chitecture and the int roduction of coloured photogr aphic images only later superficially changed the percepti on of an a ll-wh ite modern architecture. Whil e his buildings appeared monochrome, not least due to the black- and -whi te photogra ph ic im ages taken duri n g that ti me, Le Corbusi er became unwillin g ly associated with an all-whi te archi tectural style. The whi teness however was alwa ys essential to a polychrome archi tecture for him as it was the means to control the col ours and put them i n the right spatia l or der. In the int rodu cti on to his testimony on modern archi tecture V ers une architecture (Towards an Architecture) , it is ev ident that the ind ustr ial revol ut ion would change aspects of life as well as architectu re, rather than the drive for an aestheticall y pleas ing design. Le Corbusi er (200 8, 5ff) states: ‘a great epoch has begun. There exists a new spiri t. Economic la w inevi tably governs our acts and our thoughts... Industry on the grand scal e must occupy itself with bu ildi n g and establish the elements of the house on a mass - produced basis… We shall arrive at the ‘House - Machine.’ What foll owed from this gl orification of the machine was his 1925 book L’art decora tive d’aujourd’hui (The Decorativ e Art of Toda y) and was once agai n a p raise on the whi te wall, as Le Corbusi er (1987, 188) is stated: Southern Modernisms: critical stan ces throu gh regional appropriati o ns Conferen ce Pro ceedings. Porto, F ebruar y 19-21, 2015 53 ‘im agine… Every citizen is requi red to replace hi s hanging s, his damasks, hi s wall-papers, h is st encils, w ith a pla in co at of white R ipoli n. H is home is made cl ean. There are no more dirty , dark corners. Every thi ng is shown as it is. Then comes inn er cleanness, for the course adopted leads to refusal to allow anything at all wh ich is not correct, author ised, intended, desi red, thought- out : no action b efore thought.’ The archi tectural characteristi cs of the modern ima ge of the building, that of the whi te wall and flat roof, were take n up an d promoted as “an essenti al aestheti c signi f ican ce” 2 of that style by Henry-Russel l Hi tchcock and Philip Johnson in the 193 2 exh ibi t ion now referred t o as The International Style Exhibit ion at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) i n New York. It had been the aim of the curators to show the American public the new movement in architecture that they had found i n Europe. The exhibi t ion came to prominence and wide-spread recogni t ion through an accompany ing book t hat was sim u ltaneousl y wr itt en by Henry-R ussell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson call ed The Internati onal Sty le . Th is publication a imed to establi sh the pr inci p les that made up the new style. Acco rdi ng to Hitchcock and Johnson (19 95, 36) these were: First, a new conception of ar chitecture as volum e rath er th an as mass. Secondly , regul a rity r ather than axi al symmetry serves as the chi ef means of ordering design. These two pri nciples, with a third proscribing arbitrar y appli ed decorati on, mark the p roductions of the i nternati ona l style. Alth ough white as the chosen col our of modern architectu re was not greatly referred to in The International Style publication, it was as though it was a lread y im p lied that the smooth surface that would create the volum e, the regulari t y of the standard ized products and the avoidance of any appl ied decoration could only resu lt i n a monochrome surface throughout the buildi ng. Although menti oned in connection w ith the surf ace, whi teness was not ex clusiv e but could be repla ced by a wide colour range. However, when discussi ng applied 2 As Hitchcock and Johnson refer to in the exhibition Mod ern Arch i tecture: International Exhibition and accompanying book to the exhibiti on held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1932 Susanne Bau er, SOUT HERN MOD ERNISM S DE F AULT M ATERIALI TY OF WHITE NESS AND I TS CONNECTI ON TO THE INTE R NATIONAL STYLE 54 decorati on, the history of colour in modern archi tecture and thus the justification for the u se of whiten ess was ex pl ained by Hi tchcock and John son (199 5, 87): In the use of color the genera l ru le i s restrai nt. In the earli est day s of the contemporar y s tyl e whi te stucco was ubiqui tous. Little thought was gi ven to color at a time w hen architects were preoccupi ed with more essenti a l matters. Then foll ow ed a period w hen the use of color began to receive consid erable attenti on. …C olors were artificially appli ed and the majority of wall surfaces remained white. At p resent applied co lor is used less. The color of natu ral surfacing ma ter ials and the natur al metal col or of detail i s defi n itely preferred . … In surfaces of stucc o, white or off-white, even where it is obtained w ith paint, is felt to constitute the natural co lor. T he earli er use of bright color had val ue in attracti ng attention to the new styl e, but it could not long remain pleasing. It ceased to startl e and began to bore; its mechani cal sharpness and freshness becam e rapi d ly ta wdry. It is then, that Mar k Wigley’s argument about the wh ite wall as the defaul t setti ng becomes simpl y unquestionabl e. W hite is used to create volume , it has to be repeated to create regularity and at the end it also serves to avoid any applied decoration . T hi s is a lso the cas e for many projects build today, yet it must be questioned if such a generali sat ion of a classificati on of style is still appli cab le to todays’ archi tecture and if the whi teness is the m eans to ma ke thi s vi sibl e in the f orm of t he “ modern i mage. ” Th e architectur e of Alvaro Siza in th is sense becomes a fitting case study for a different ki nd of Mod ernism, a Southern Modernism or mor e precisely , tha t of Portugal . As Frampton (2000, 12) alread y acknowledg es t hat ‘Siza’s earl y works are insepara b le from the larger effort to re-cast the Portu gues tradi tion in modern terms.’ The whi te wall is embedded i nto Southern Modern ism due to its vernacul ar style and as such pre-dates a cla ssificati on of an International St yl e by centuries. Alvaro Siza, educated in the times im mediately succee di ng early Modernism , foll owed a moderni st design language due to his educati on. H is use of whi teness howev er, cannot only be credi ted to an internati ona l style classi f icati on. To him t he chang es i n architecture are constant and as such there Southern Modernisms: critical stan ces throu gh regional appropriati o ns Conferen ce Pro ceedings. Porto, F ebruar y 19-21, 2015 55 is an evolution in architectural design. 3 His use of whi teness i s thus not a conti nuation of an internati onal des ig n l anguage, yet rather a reacti on to different architectural projects i n different locati ons and at dif fer ent tim es. One of hi s f irst projects, the swimming poo l in Le ça Da Palm e ira in 1963 was built in concrete due to i ts locati on i n th e middle of a rocky shore. It also had to be mai n tained as inexp ensiv e ly as poss ibl e and was therefore not painted as the pai nt would have been washed up by the sea. In other projects he used brick as in the Dutch Social Housi ng of Sch ilderswi jk-West i n The Hague i n 1988 as a materi al of good mai n tenance. 4 Referr ing to this project he i s quoted: The criti cs hated me for using brick. In Holla nd i n the 19 80s there wa s some division between architects. Some consid ered the whi te the modern colour and the brick the old tradition, relating also to the school of Amsterdam whi ch was the opposi te of rati onalism .. . But the irony is that i n Holla nd I would never use white. It had to be brick. So, the critics said it was not modern. Brick has alway s been used and it is st ill us ed. It is a very econom ical ma te rial ’ 5 Siza thus acknowledges that ‘there are many - pre - concepts about colour but at the end it is not a probl em of taste. There are many problems behind the decisi on of colour. ’ 6 The whiteness ma inl y used in hi s interi ors he defends as often being used for economic reasons but points out that the use of material al so depends on the context as well as the cli mate. As the white colour protects buildi ngs i n hot wea ther f rom the ha r d climate conditions, thi s vernacular tradi tion is one of the main reasons for the whi te wall in Sout hern Moderni sm. Aestheti cally, this cou ld be considered as an “i nternational style” when in eff ect it was deri ved out of context and cul ture. In another of his well-known projects, he agai n found inspi ration from moderni st roots away from the aestheti cs of the whi te wall. In the Bouça Socia l Hous ing i n 1977 , he introduced a bright red wall on t he exteri or façades of the four parallel 3 As Alvaro Siza stated in an interview I conducted with him on 6 th of September 2012 at Alvaro Siza Off i ces in Porto 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. Joana Br ites , WIDENING THE SCOPE OF MODERNISM: is there roo m for Por tuguese fas cist arc hitectur e? 62 has an imagery that is coincident w ith, close eno ugh to or on the path of the Mode rn Movement. E xamples include the Casa del Fascio by G iuseppe Terragni (It aly, Como, 1 928 - 1936), the Nat ional Institute of S tatist ics by Pardal Mo nteiro (Portugal, L isbon, 1931 - 1935 ), the Sotiria Ho spiral laundry and k itchen unit by Peri klis Georg akopoulos (Greece, Athens, 1 939 - 1940), t he Es tacas Complex by Sebastião Fo rmosinho S anchez and Ruy d'A thouguia (Portugal , Lisbon, 1949 - 1958), the Tarragona Civil Government bu ilding by A lejandro de la Sota ( Spain, 1956 - 19 64). If any thing, it paves the way for an arch itecture that may be classed as a cr it ical reappraisal of the Mo dern Mo vement, capable of e nsuring its survival in the pos t World War II pe riod (for example, the Portuguese Leca de Palmeira sw imming pool by Á lvaro Siza Vie ira, 19 66). The artificiality of mode rn architecture inventor ies in countries that have experienced more o r less extended periods of authoritarian or to tali ta r ian government has s tarted to caus e some discomfort and do ubt even in those who run them (Cortés, 1997, p. 1 6 6). In fact, o ften, the architects whose works are acclaimed produced many othe rs that are omi tted be cause the y do not fit in with the fixed standard s. A mono logue about modern arc hitecture is thus perpetuated, o ne that cannot see that modernisation, as complex and destructuring phenom enon, led to mu ltifacete d and conflicting an swe rs. How the relat ionship of twentieth century arch itecture with trad ition is interpreted ( in both its nationa l and reg ional facets; e ither in its c lassical or popular dimension) is the as pect that mos t denotes the curre nt bias. When this connecti on occurs a gai nst a co nservative libera l, demoliberal and democratic backdrop histor iography see s i t as an integral part of modern architecture. In the context o f postmodern euphoria, it is even praised as prophyl a xis aga inst the uni versal am b iti ons of the Modern Mov eme nt and signal o f the s timulating ( and never so dazzling) world’s divers ity. However, whe n the link betwee n tradition and modernity tha t so me authors have called the ‘ third way ’ (Ben - Ghiat, 19 96) is recorde d at both ends o f the po litical spec trum, the pheno men on turns into an archenemy: the ultimate example of the a nti - modern. The exc eption boils down to the Italian rationalists in the service of Benit o M us so lin i , s itu a t io n, wh ich , however, as A lan Colquhoun rightly emphasises, ‘ has always bee n an embarras sm ent to architectural his torians ’ (Co lquhoun, 2 002, p. 183). Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 63 This double standard is backed by the a llege d possibility of di stinguish ing the quality of the result ing hybr idism. Label led as art ificial, mi metic, sent imental, folksy, pastiche or kitsch in authoritarian and totalitarian reg imes. In all others it is classed as critical, i nnovative and genuine , able to engender a synthe sis (not a simple col lage) that is informed, authe ntic and c ontemporary. Ho wever, this is a subje ctive (as it implies a va luat ion) and M anichean argument which, l ike all those bas ed on a binary oppo sition, pro ves to be far from foo lproof whe n faced with the complexity of reality. T he appli cation of this thes is would prompt many claims to the status of exce ption which, inste ad of conf ir m in g th e ru le , w o u ld evince the fragile operability o f the ini t ia l premise. A dispassio nate view of the built env ironment in t he twentieth century would conc lude that t he inventivene ss of attempts to re concile modernity and tradition does not necessarily depend on the type of po litica l regime. Given the above, it seems pertinent to readdress a question that was thought to be supers eded: are we actually prepared to deem as modern the twent ieth century architecture that dia logues with the pas t? Is the abs tractionist and allegedly a - histor ic rationalism not still regarded, even unconsciously, as the perfect and complete manifestation of modernism in architecture? At first sight, everything suggests that trad ition and modernity are currently agre ed to be ine s c apably inte rconnec ted. As De ll Upto n note s, ‘ the adj ectives trad itional and modern are themselve s artefacts of modernity: tradition did not e xist until it was imagined as the de fining com plement of modernity ’ (2001, p. 298). Globalizat ion, ‘ rather than do ing away with tradition, (.. .) has delivered ne w conditio ns for its emergence; installed ne w mechanisms for its transference ; and brought into be ing ne w political im pe ratives for i ts per formanc e. Under globalization, tradi ti on has be en reshaped and enlive ned in a range o f unexpecte d ways ’ ( Jacobs , 2004, p. 30 - 31) . We should therefore no t be surprised that, i n the architectura l field, internationalism has developed not o nly simultaneously but also d ialectica lly, with the strengthening of nationa l and regional/ local identit ies. Moreover, e ven when it comes to the designated pioneers of modern arc hitecture (ofte n hastil y portrayed as stro ng advoc ates of a u niversal language without historical footprint), a grow ing number of studies show that far from operating a break with the past, indeed, they we re related to it in a complex way (Garnham, 2013). Joana Br ites , WIDENING THE SCOPE OF MODERNISM: is there roo m for Por tuguese fas cist arc hitectur e? 64 However, the postmodern historiograph ical revision ism of the r ole and place o f tradition in the development of mode rn archi te cture is st ill far fro m su pplanting the old current paradigm of its assess ment. To prove thi s we examine the event that would theoretical ly be least like ly to substantiate this c laim. We are referring to the 9th International DOCOMOM O Conferenc e on the theme Ot he r Mode rnisms , foc us ing precisely on highlighting the he terogeneity of modern construc tions. This meeting took p lace in T urkey in 2006 and res ulted in the clear percept ion that, a longside or in oppos ition to the state les s primer of the Mode rn Movement, contextual architectural approac hes e xisted across the globe throughout the twentieth c entury. Instead of representing the exception or a rare or residual man ifestation, their hi gh incide nce has be come indisputable. The search fo r a national mode rn arch itecture is an internation al ph enomenon (Tourni ki ot is & D'Orgei x, 2007 ). Nonethe less, as often happens in much of postmodern literature , the effort to enhance and disse minate the otherness ulti m ately strengthe ns and essentialises the paradigm which initially it was intended to question. The greatest epistemologica l turnaro und – one that des cri bes a 3 60º angle – e ventually brings us to t he very p oint w here we w ere (zero degree a ngl e). Hi royasu Fuji oka seems aware of this when he opens the article on the Japanese case by stating that ‘” Other Modernisms” implies that there are two kinds of m odernism s; original and perfect mode rnism, and imperfect o r hybrid modernism, influenc ed by the former ’ ( 2007, p. 61). Other inputs, suc h as that by Ivan Nevzgodin and Lyudmilla Tokmeninova o n modern architecture in Eastern Russi a, mould the maintenance o f an evaluative scale of mo dernisms, co ntaminated fo r ideologica l reasons . Thi s attitude, summarised in the title of their essay, ‘ Mo dernism repress ed, o therness bloo ms’ , leads them t o defend this interpretative the sis: while abroad the works of the constructivists and the rationalists we re greatly prized, in thei r own country they we re supporte d onl y by some advanced politic ians, although the buildings o f “Other Modernisms” were greatly apprec iated by the masse s from t heir very beg innings. This, later on, allowed the conc ept of so cialist rea lism (Sots realism) to crystalli ze, so that the true moder nists were fo rced to turn into “Other M odernists”. (2007, p. 8 5) Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 65 The space given to public buildings of fascist reg imes is marginal, whereas the purp ose of the Con ference – to sho w the reverse of the Inte rnati o nal S tyle – enabled a more extensive analysis of this reality. In addit ion, although construc tions that respect a stylised and monume ntal classicism are re garded as “other mode rnisms”, the refusal to document the blatant parallels with Nazi art (among othe rs) still endures . The construc tion of a cri t ical histor iography of the arc hitecture of fascist regim es requires, in our view, three conditions: a) renunciation of the general link between mo dernism and the political left; b) conc lusiv e reje ction, as a gauge, of the imagery and the Modern Movement assumptions of the 1920s and 1930 s ; c) adoption of a broader co ncept of modernism. It can be found i n the pivota l work of the reno wned historian and theorist of fascism Roger Gr iffin, M oderni sm and Facism . The Sense of a Beginning under Mussolini and Hitle r (2007). S ince this is not the place for a summary of either this book or its reviews, o ne merely stresses o ne of its most fruitful contr ibutions fo r art historians. In a pos tmodern climate featuring d istrust o f global interpre tive systems, Griffin provides a new conce ptual paradigm that helps us underst and the co existence and art iculate, in a clear and unique ‘ maximalis t definition ’ of mode rnism (whi ch the author does not reduce to the sphere of aesthetics), the divers ity of artistic react ions, sometimes co nflicting but all palingenetic, before the perception of the alleged decadenc e resulting from Wes tern moder nisat ion (200 7, p. 5 4 - 55). In the field of visual arts, the term mode rnism would encompass both the individual pursu it of s pirituality re cognised in Kandinsky, and the intention of the construc tivists in placing art in the service of the revoluti o n. More important as support for the thesis that th is art icle prop oses: fas cist modernis m is no longer seen as an oxymoron. Mode rnism i n arch itec ture was mani fested as much in the belief that a standardised co nstruction wo uld meet the pressing soc ial and economi c nee ds of a conte mporary city as i n the fight against a ‘denational ising’ and ‘amnesic’ globa lization through an ae sthetic capab le of currently ref lecting an d d r iv in g t he t im e le s s volksg eist , felt to b e under threat. Joana Br ites , WIDENING THE SCOPE OF MODERNISM: is there roo m for Por tuguese fas cist arc hitectur e? 66 The con firm ation a nd freq uent over estim a tion of the traditionalist and agrarian di mension of the Estado N ovo (1933 - 1974), fa scism 1 The the sis that modernisat ion, conveye d by two maj or do ctrinal streams , industria lism and the neo - physiocratic agrarian reformism, was ne ver a goal i n it se lf, but a conces sion in favour of the regime's s urvival , is s hared (Rosas, 2000). There fore, it materialised gradua ll y (slowly, reconc iling inherited barr iers with those established in the meantime) and pragmatica lly (with compromises, not shaking the bala nce of diverging interes ts that existed in the base, se cured or to be s eized, of su pport for the dictatorship). w ith A nt ó nio de O l iv e ir a Salazar at the he lm u ntil 1968, has hampe re d the historiograph ic al recognit ion of the modernising side that is al so part of it. As a result, i ts architecture is a particu larly useful cas e study to tes t the co nceptual boundaries o f mode rnism. However, like othe r fascist regimes, the Po rtuguese dictatorshi p did not intend to tread the path back to the past. Indee d, the rescue of the ho m e lan d h is t or ic a l legacy, exorc ised of i ts ‘ unhealthy’ episod es, was inte nded to act as a sp iritual substrate to face the mission of nat ional rege neration to be undertake n in the present. A nd there was a concrete pro gramm e for this. The Es tado Novo ( the very name is palingenetic) devised and applied with relative s uccess a comprehens ive project of intervent ion in Portuguese s ociety. The totalising vocation of the pro ject was express ed in the size of the apparatus created fo r mobilising and inculcating its ideo logy, so that a ‘ne w man’ would be created (Ro sas , 2001) . Far from being reduced to a simply reactionary phenomeno n, Salazarism was a po litica l form of modern ism. Faced with an allegedly s ick nation, after more than a hundred years of monarchic al and republican libera lism, it was presente d as a countervailing ‘National Revo lution’. I t publicised the prog ramme to build a ne w order as o ne of resuming the old, genuine, course of the nation. In the words of Oliveira Salazar, ‘ our duty is not to save a so ciety that is ro tting, but to util ise the old healthy beams to launch the ne w socie ty of the future ’ 2 1 Th ere is no c onsensu s on the c lassific ation of the Es tado Nov o (New Stat e) as fasci sm in Portu guese a nd intern ation al historiogr aph y. Since it is beyond th e scope of th is article , w e do not discu ss it an d have adopte d our pos ition w ithou t substa ntiatin g it. We ar e also aw are th at Roger Griffin regards Sal azar’s Es t ado Novo as a ‘ para - fascism ’. H owever , we do n ot feel that th is inv alidates th e applica tion of his c oncept of modern ism to the P ortugu ese re ali ty, a s we in fac t ha d the oppor tun ity to asce rta in, hav ing the auth or addres s this pos sibility, in writin g, in 201 0. (1937, p. 44) . In many of h is 2 Tr anslation by the a uthor. Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 67 public address es, the he ad of state de scribed the task underta ken as a ‘ work of regenerati on ’ 3 (1935, p. 153) , ‘ revo lutionary ’ and ‘ national salva tion ’ 4 The historiography o f the cultural polic y of the Estado N ovo has predominantly examined the devices and e vents that, fo r internal and external consumpt ion, produced a c onsensus on the po rtrait of a rural, popular, Portugal, fa ithful to its origins and essenc e, untouche d by city anarc hy (A lves, 2013) . The promo tion and enforce ment of a ‘ national ist - ruralist - traditio nalist mo del of popular c ulture ’ (1935, p. 318) . The ne w era th at was beginning was conceived rhetorically as a rebirth, an esse ntial fe ature of what Roger Griffin calls the ques t fo r an ‘ al ternative mode rnity ’ ( 2007, p. 31). 5 The same room where once the embroidery of a particular reg ion was on disp lay housed the modern art exhibition of the N ational Pro paganda Se cretariat (Alves , 2010, p. 19 0). Abr oad, both the "creative fantas y of rustic peop le" are undeniable (M elo, 2001 , p. 375). However, it should be noted that the inculcation of th is m ental archetype oper ated alongs ide the fo stering of the image of an effective, rational and entrepreneurial state. Folk groups, festivals, parades and villages were pro moted simul taneo us ly with the modern general plans for the country' s urbanisation and a wide - ranging programme of public works supe rvised by engineers and the catalyst of the late st gene ration of architects. 6 (Alves , 2010, p. 184) was expo rted, and the p artic ipation of the Portuguese vanguard was secure d in i nte rnatio nal exhibitions 7 The re gime’s publi c a rchitecture reflects this inclusive log ic, typical of fascism s , both in terms of the pol itical and ideolog ical posit ioning of the architects hired (Brites , 2014) , and at the level of the aesthetic languages adopte d (from the imagery of rationa lism to the c leansed re interpretations o f clas sicism, mediae val , even when these artists oppo sed the ideology of the re gime. Under the wing o f state co mmi ssioning, we find either Almada Negre iros or S evero Porte la Júnior, Francisco Ke il do Amara l or Cottine lli Telm o. 3 Tr anslation by the a uthor. 4 Tr anslation by the a uthor. 5 Tr anslation by the a uthor. 6 Tr anslation by the a uthor. 7 Th e doctoral th esis by U lri ke Z ech und er way will do cumen t and illus trate the i mage of m odernity which t he N ew State c onveyed a t inter nation al exh ibition s. Joana Br ites , WIDENING THE SCOPE OF MODERNISM: is there roo m for Por tuguese fas cist arc hitectur e? 68 and Baroque styles, taking in regionali sm, significant ly i mposed and often invented). In sp ite of th is relative hete rogeneity, a co re aspiration can be discerned that runs t hrough the e ntire output of the Es tado Novo , particularly from the sec ond half of the 1930s. It is a catchphrase, neve r defined with clarity and therefore tes ted by appro ximation, trial and error: the dem and fo r a national modern, a cons truction style tha t was at the same time contempo rary and suited to the loca lity and/or spe cificity of the co untry. This agenda acc ommodated various formulat ion s, depend ing on the evol ution of the regim e itsel f, the type of public building in question, the place for which it was intended, the profile of the people respo nsible fo r its appraisa l and the margin granted to the architect - designer. Salazarism never uph eld anachron ism or the practice of an archa eological type of architecture. It d id not rej ect mo derni ty entire ly, but dislike d disaggregat ing, standardising, state less fore ignness, embodied by the architectural abstraction ist internationalism ( dubbe d ‘boxes ’ ) . An alternative mode rnity was thus asp ired to and achieved which, far from being an exclusive diktat of the state, pervaded the discourses of the ti mid spec iali s t pres s and of civil society and the dilemmas of the architects the mselves. The que st for a national characte r in art in general and a ‘ re - Portugues ifying’ of architecture in particular, albe it not born with the Estado No vo , was radicalised and assumed a tota lising d imension and a n unprece dented operational c apac ity. Indeed, the legal f abric set up fo r choosing architects and fo r approving and overse eing public works proj ects – in whi ch spheres and mechanisms of loca l (municipalit ies) and central (various m inistries, the Court o f Audi tors, Counc il of Ministers, and so fo rth) decision - ma k ing j o in e d together – ensured the functioning of a cohe rent and effec tive system capable of progres sively paring down and improving any architectura l propo sal, in the light of the aesthetic ideals supported ( while evolving). In conclusion, trying to find remnants of the Modern Movem ent i n the pu b li c architecture of Portu gues e fascism with a view to legitimising its modernist nature would be ‘ to m iss the point’ , as Roger Griffin has said abo ut the same effort in the Nazi case (2007, p. 294) . Whether we find them or not (and in fact they have not bee n enti re ly eradicated), the public architectur e of the Estado Novo was modern. Th e need for ‘ ontolo gical security ’ ( Gidde ns, 1 990, p. vi i) was Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 69 linked with the ambi tion to be the vis ible face o f the new chapter of nat ional history. Its most archaic feature s do not hurt its palingenet ic nature at all. Just like the nurtured nationalist cu ltural, folklorist and rural pol icy retained an underlying purpose of social transformation: to shape the worldview of the people by forging an equivalence be tween the values espoused by the regime and the suppos ed features of Portugues e identity. The way the st ate architectura l output was env isioned and co nditioned is a f ine example of the pract ice of what Zy gmunt Bauman call e d the modern ‘ gardening state ’ (Bauman, 1991, p. 20) . Reacting selectivel y to the process of modernisation, healt hy species we re encourage d, plants that could st ill be useful were domesticat ed, weeds were pulled up and crops we re monitored. In the ne w garden, certainly metamorphose d by changes in the c limate conditions, ne w pasts were manufactured and the commitments and balances of force s w ere managed in each pres ent, in order to guarantee a future . References Alves, V. (2010). O povo do Estado Novo. I n J. Neves (Ed. ) , Com o s e fa z u m pov o : Ensaios em hist ória c on tempora  nea de Po rtu ga l (pp. 183-194). L i sboa : Edic  oes Tinta da China . Alves, V. (2013). Art e p op ul ar e naçã o no Est ad o N ov o: a p olítica folc lorista do Secretariado da Propaganda Nacional . Lisboa: Impre nsa de Ciê nc ias So ci ais. Bauman, Z. (1991). Moder nity and ambivalence . Itha ca , N .Y.: Co rn el l Uni versi t y Pre ss . Ben - Ghi at, R. (1996). I tali an fas ci sm and the aesthetics o f the ‘third way’ . 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Th e st rug gl e for m od erni ty (pp. 58- 62). New Y ork: O xford U ni versit y Press. Colquhoun, A. (2002). Modern a rchi te ctu re . Ox ford : Ox ford Un i ver s i ty Press . Joana Br ites , WIDENING THE SCOPE OF MODERNISM: is there roo m for Por tuguese fas cist arc hitectur e? 70 Cort és , J. A . ( 19 97) . U s os v ersu s rep res ent açã o /U se v ersu s rep res ent at i on . In X . C ost a & S. Land rov e (Eds.), Arquitectura do movimento moderno : I nv en tári o Do com omo Ib éri co , 1925 - 1965 = Arc hit ecture of the moder n move ment: Iberia n Docomomo register, 1925 - 1965 (pp. 16 4- 171) . Lisb on: Associ ac  ão dos Arquitec tos Portugueses & Fu nd ação Mi es van de r Roh e. Frampto n, K. (1980). Modern arc h itec tu re: A critical his tory . Lond on: Thame s and Huds on. Frampto n, K. (1985). Towar d s a critical re gi onalism: six points for an architec ture of resistanc e. In H . Foster (E d.), Po stm od ern C ul tu re (pp.16 - 30). Lo n don: Pluto Pre ss. Fu ji oka, H . (2 00 7). Ot hern ess an d t he ri ppl e of mod ern i sm . Do com om o Jou rn al,3 6 , 61 - 63 . Gar nham, T. (2013). Ar chi tect ur e re - assembled: The use (and abuse) of histor y . New York : Routledge . Geist, A., & Monl eó n, J. (Eds. ). (1999). Modernism and its margins: Reinsc ribing cultural modernity fr om Spain and Latin America . New York: Garl and Publ. Giddens, A. (1990). The c onseque n ces of m odernity . Stanford, C al if.: Stanford Un i versi ty Pres s. Giedion, S. (1941). Space, time and architec ture: the gro wth of a new traditio n. Cam bri d ge: Ha rv ard Un iv ersi t y Pr ess. Hall, S. (2006). A identidade cultural na p ós - modernidade (11th e d.). Rio de Janeiro : DP&A. Hitchcoc k , H. (1929). Modern a rchitec tur e: romanticis m and reintegr ati on . N ew Y ork: Pays on & C l arke Li mi ted. Hit chcock, H ., & J ohn son , P. (1932 ). The international style: arc h itecture since 1922 . New York: W.W . No rton . Ise nstadt, S., & Rizvi, K. (E d s.). (2 008). Modernism and the Middle East: Architectur e and politic s in the twentieth ce ntu ry . Se attle: University o f Washington Pr ess. Jaco bs , J. (2004). Tradition i s (not) mo dern: deterritoria lizing globa li zati on . In N. AlSayyad (E d.), Th e end of t radi ti on? (pp. 29 -4 4). New York: Routledge . Jenck s , C. (1973). Mod ern mo vem en ts in a rch it ect ur e . Ga rden C i ty, N .Y. : An ch or P r ess . Kaufmann, E. (1933). Von Le doux bis Le Corbu sier ; Urspr ung und E nt wickl ung der Au tonom en A rch it ekt ur. Wi en: Pass er . Leal, J . C., Mai a, M . H., & Ca rdoso, A. (20 13). T o and f ro : m od erni sm a nd verna c ul ar arch ite ct ure . Porto: ESAP, CEAA. Lejeu ne , J. , & Sa bati n o, M. (Eds.) . ( 2010). Mod ern arc hi te ctu re a nd th e Med it er ran ean : verna cu la r di alog u es an d contes ted identitie s . L ondo n : Routledge . Melo, D . (2001). Salazarismo e cultura popular (1933 - 1958) . Lisboa , Portugal: Imp re n sa de Ci e  nci a s Soci ais. Montane r, J. M. (2007). Arq ui tetu ra e crí ti ca . B arcel on a: Gu sta vo Gil i . Nevzgod in , I., & Tokm en inova , L. (2007). M od ern i sm rep ress ed, ot he rness bl oom s . Docom om o J ourn al, 36 , 85 - 87. Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 71 Pevsner, N. (1936). Pi on eers of th e m ode rn m o vem en t: f rom William Morris to Walter Grop ius . Lond on: [s.n.]. Real , P., & Gyger , H. ( Ed s.). (20 13). Lati n American modern archite cture s: a mbiguous ter rit ori es . N ew Yo rk: R ou tl edge. Rosas, F. (2000). Sala z arismo e fomento económico (1928 - 1948) . Lisb oa : Ed ito ria l No tíc ias . Rosas , F. (2 001 ). O sal az ari sm o e o h ome m n ovo: En sai o sob r e o Es tad o N ov o e a questã o do totalitarismo . Análise Social, XXXV (157) , 1031 - 1054. Sabatino, M . (2010 ). P ri de in mod est y: m od erni st ar chi tect u re an d t he v erna cu la r tradition in Italy . To ront o: Uni versi t y of T or ont o Pr ess. Salazar, A. (1935). Discu rsos e nota s pol íti cas . Vol. 1. 1928 - 1934 . C oimbra: Coimbra E d. Salazar, A. (1937). Disc urso s e n ota s polít ica s : Vol. 2. 1935 - 1937 . Coimbra : Coimbra Ed . Sharp , D., & Coo ke, C. ( Eds.). (2000). Th e M od ern M ov em ent in ar chi tect ur e: s el ect ion s from th e D OC OMO MO reg ist ers . Rotterdam: 010. Si ndi ca to dos arquitectos. (1 961). Arq ui tect ura p opu lar em Portu ga l . Li sbon: S NA. Tafuri , M. (19 80). Theorie s and his t ory of archite cture . Ne w Y ork: Ha rp er & R ow. Tour n iki ot i s, P. (1999). The historiogr aphy of moder n archi tec ture . Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press. Tourn i ki ot is, P . , & D'Org ei x, É (Eds .). (20 07). O t her m od ern i sms: a s el ec ti on from th e Docom omo R egi st ers [S p ecia l issue] . Doc om om o Jou rn al, 36 . Umbach, M., & H üppau f, B. (2005). Vernacular moder n ism: heimat, globalization, a nd the b uilt enviro nment . Sta nford, C al i f.: Stan ford Un i versi t y Pr ess. Upton, D. (2001). " Auth entic" Anx ieties . In N. AlSayyad (E d.), Consuming tr ad ition, manuf acturing her itage: g lobal norms and u rban forms in the age of tourism (pp. 298 - 306). L ond on: Ro utledge. Wilk, C. (2006). Intro du ction: What was modernism?. In C. Wil k (E d.), Modernism: designing a ne w world, 1914 - 1939 (pp. 11- 21) . Lond on: V&A P ubl i ca ti ons. Wilson, C. (1995). The oth er t radi ti on of mod er n arc hi te ctu re: th e un c om pl eted p roj ect . Londo n: Academy Editions. Aut h or ide ntif ication Jo ana Br ites . I s a fu ll - time Invited Ass istant Professor th e Faculty of Art and H u manities of the Univer sity of Coimbra (UC) and a n in teg ra ted r es earc he r at C EI S 20 . Sh e wa s awa rded tw o f ell owsh ip s by FC T (master's in 2008 and doc t orate in 2012 , wi th a the sis awa rded wi th “Victor de Sá Prize for Contemporary Histor y 2012” ) and work ed a s an a rt histor ian's in the Off ice responsible fo r the applicatio n of the UC for Wor ld Herit ag e Status. H er participatio n i n inte rnational proje cts and r es earc h f ocu ses on M od ern Mo veme nt history, the r elatio n shi p between f a scism and moder nism, fa scist h erit age , totalitarian art and mec han isms o f arti st ic con tr ol. 1 T ra nslation by the au thor. Alexandr a Cardoso, Ma ria Helena Maia and Alexandra Trev isan, P ARA LLEL PA TH S 78 © P edro Vieira de A lmeida Zachos made systematic surveys of Greek vernacular arc hitecture, espec ially in the Macedonia region, and defended the importance of its study and its diffusion in the seminal ar t ic l e Vernacular Archite cture ( 1911 ) . There, he expressed the fundamental characte r of those studi e s “ if we would like to ha ve a rea lly genu ine contemporary Gre ek style of architecture w ith a pure ly Greek aes thetic”. Zac hos also pleaded fo r the valorisation of vernac ular forms and the manner in which t hey are expe rienced. In his opi nion, this rec ognition was fundamental “in order to rectify our architectural taste, which has been so warped by imported styles alien to o ur own custo ms and traditions”. (Zac hos , 1911 ) 7 * . Carlos Ramos and D im it r is P ik io n is belong to the next ge ne ration. In contrast to Lino and Zachos, Ramos and Pi k ionis studied in their nat iv e countries, at a time when the French influence was dominant. Howeve r, both travelled in Euro pe, at the final stage o f their formation. Ramos visited S pain, France and Be lgium whereas P ikionis went to Germany a nd France. Both of the m also ta ught architecture for many years, and wer e interes ted in vernacular arch itecture. Dim it r is P ik io n is himse lf started a set of fie ld surveys focuse d on vernacular trad ition that he always cons idered as val uab le work instrume nts in the natural proces s of maki ng arch itecture. He carried out his f irst field researc h with his study of t he hous e that had bee n built by peas ant Alexis R odakis, circa 1880 in Mess agros, on the Island of Aegina. This house constitutes an almost mythica l referenc e both for the ethnologists and for the architects , as it represents the genuine character of the relationship between a s imple man and the surroun ding nature. Still dur ing the sam e year, P ikionis co llecte d graphic information (1912 - 1918) in order to illustrate one of his authored publications – We and Our 7 Ar ticle publish ed in Th rough th e Lens of Aristotel is Zac hos 1915 - 19 31, Neoh ell enic Architect ure Archives – Benak i M useu m, 2007 Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 79 Vernacular A rt (1923) – where he reflects upon the values of vernacular tradition. S imultaneously, he shows a de ep intere st for trad itio nal architecture in Aegina (1918 - 21) that he developed dur ing the various trips to the island he made , initially alone, an d from 1921, w ith his students of Architecture 8 . Figur e 3. Rodakis Hous e : S urvey by D . PIK IONIS . Mess agros , Aegina, 191 2 B enaki M useum Neohel lenic Ar chitectur e Archiv es In Oporto, Carlos R amos became the directo r of the Esc ola de Belas Artes, commonly known as “Escola do Porto”, and gave it an international reputation. He invited ge ographers, s uch as Orlando Ribe iro and anthropologists , suc h as Jorge Dias , to gi ve lectures . He accepted to supervise students wishing to prepare theoretical disse rtat ions on architecture, at a time whe n nobody did it. He e ncouraged the students to participate in anthropology campa igns and in surveys of folk architecture. (Filgue iras, 1986, s p) . He played a ro le of relevance in the natural 8 For the v arious su rveys c ondu cted by P ikionis to v ern acu lar arch itecture, we resea rch ed the Neo - He lle nic Archi tecture A rchives B enaki Museum (July 2014) . In th is collec tion , we w ould like to th ank e ver y as sistan ce giv en by Polin a B oriso va. Alexandr a Cardoso, Ma ria Helena Maia and Alexandra Trev isan, P ARA LLEL PA TH S 80 architectural cu lture, and, in simu ltaneous, kept always the inte rnational contact. Ramos belongs to the 1927 generation, wh ich he ca lled genera tio n of com promise . He was respo nsible for combining the different c urrents that existed in Po rtugal at the ti me and his wo rk is es pecially use ful in order to exemplify a new use o f vernacular as a ve hicle of mode rnity. Figur e 4. Carlos Ram os, proj ect for a worki ng - class ne ighborhoo d in Olhão Di mit r i P ik io n is covered a parallel path . I n h is o p in io n , the fo undations for the cons truction of “a ne w contemporary architecture , appropr iate to local building materials , cli mate, and cultural life” ( Theoc har opol ou , 2010: 1 12) could exclusively be f ound in a clear understanding of “vernacular language” in its placenes s meaning. Pi k io n is is, above all, “ a refined interprete r of his time. Although o bserving it from an apparently distant time, he demonstrates that he und e rstands in its own reason, whic h is the Greece that goes on living” . (Ferlenga, 1999:10) It must be stre sse d that Pik i o nis abso rbed the Gree k vernacular natura lly and constantly as a s ource of modernity throughout his career. On the contrary, the way that very same arc hitectural universe was abso rbed by international arc hitectural cu lture, was neither natur al nor acce ptable for him . In P ik io n is e x is t s, apparent ly, a ne gation to th e u nc r it ic a l internationalisat ion of the re gional values that cannot be s t andardi se d by using forma l criteria . This reaction may have arisen, f irstly by the concern that his students would beg in to move and “to reconnect with the architectural vision of the Bauhaus” or th eir common convictio n on “‘for m Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 81 foll ows fu nction’ or ‘les s i s more’ ” (Papageorgiou - Ve netas , 2002), an d secondl y , by the fasc ination of h is professiona l colleagues as conc erns the “innovative” gu idelines presente d by the CIAMs . Indeed, Pik io n is v igo r o u s ly oppose d to the C IAM IV 9 that would take place in Athens i n August 1 933, 10 The ne ed to hou s e c. 1,3 mi llion peo p le, i. e , the Greeks re patri ate d from the Turkey, and the unc ritical app lication o f imported models c ould lead to the destruc tion of the Greek landscape, a sen s it iv e s ubjec t for Piki on is, who always argued that “M an took nature as his teac her on h is way, in his l ife .” (P ik io n is , 1 925) . probably becaus e he was afraid that the Greek architects could be influenced by the prese nce of international s tars eager to have a p lace where they c ould test the ir propos als. 11 This warning of Pik ionis is specially legitimated by the fact t hat , at the beginning of h is tra jec tory, he adopte d some princ iples of the Mode rn Mo vement , i. e., “ its organic s implic ity” and by its prom ise “to become the embodiment of organic truth” (D im it r is Pi k io n is ) . 12 However, afte r the construc tion of the El ementar y School of Lycabethus (1930/19 32) 13 , he fe e ls un s at is f ie d w ith the same principles, because it occurs to hi m that “the universal sp irit had to be c oupled with the spirit of nationhoo d” ( Dim it r is P i k io n is ) 14 Similarly, Ca rlos Ramos , who active ly adheres to UIA, will stay away of CIA M. M aybe, because, as already noted (Almeida, 1986, sp) , albeit Ramos defined himself a m odern , he used i n many of hi s works “ a language that coul d be consid e red ‘tradi t io n a l ist ’, in the u ncertain sens e, in wh ich the term was used at the time , due a certain lack of forma l conviction, and an 9 For mor e details a bout this meetin g, see Eric M umford, The CIAM Discourse o n Urb anism, 1928 - 1960, First MIT Press pape rback edition , 2002 10 Theoc haropolou, I . (2010) . Nature a nd People. Th e Vernac ular an d the Sea rch for a True Greek Arch itecture. See f ootnote 21 11 Apud Giacumacatos, A . (19 99). From Conservat ism to Popul ism, Pausing at Mod ernism: Th e Architectu re of th e Inter - War Peri od. 12 Au tobiograph ica l Notes in AA, VV. (1989) . Dimitris P ikion is, Ar ch itect 1887 - 1968 ‘A Sen timental T opograph y’, Arc hitectur al Assoc iation L ondon 13 See d o c o _ m o m o _ Intern ational w orking p arty for docu mentation and con serva tion Min imum Doc u mentation Fic he 2003 http://rl icc.asro.kuleuven.ac.be/rli cc/docomomo/Regist ers/2007%20Education%2 0Fiches/Gr eece/GR %20Pikionis %201 930/GR%20P ikionis%202 007.pdf 14 Au tobiograph ica l Notes .. . Alexandr a Cardoso, Ma ria Helena Maia and Alexandra Trev isan, P ARA LLEL PA TH S 82 evident lucidity in owns ’ limits to e laborate an alte rnative prop osal in this fie ld” . Pedro Vie ira de Alm eida (1986 : sp ) has already dr awn our atte ntion to Carlos Ramos’ s speech about arc hitecture in 1933, when he q uote d Emile Schreiber’s statement that “international penetration, nat ional interpre tation voila the whole sec ret of harmony in the wo rld of tomorrow” . Fin a l ly , we refer to the capacity to pl a y w ith the modern mo ves t hat were happening in an international conte xt and local tradition, there b y reinventing a modernity that, albe it its geographica l periphery, is equally valid and origi nal. These architects , who were re active to the formulary offere d by the CIAM , someho w, antici pate d the combination of critic al regionalism (Lefai vre & T zo n is , 198 1 ; Frampton , 1982 ) w it h cri tical internatio nalism (A lme ida , 2005 ) , that w ill chara cterise the be st of co ntemporary culture . A ckno wledgments Thi s w ork wa s cond uc t ed u nd er th e proje ct Souther n Moder nisms (EXPL/CPC - HAT/0191/2013), funded by national funds th rough FCT under Projec t 3599 - Pro m oting the Rese a rch Production, Techno l ogical Dev elopment and Innova tion. References AA, VV. (1989). Dimit ris Pikionis, Arc h itect 1887 - 1968 ‘A Se nti mental Topogr aphy’, Archi t ectural A ssoci ati on Lon don Almeida, P.V. (1970). R aul Lino, Arquitecto M oderno in Raul Lino. Expos iç ão retrospectiva da sua obra. Lisboa: Fundaç ão Cal ouste G ul benkian Almeid a, P.V. (1986). C arlos Ramos — Um a Est rat égi a d e Int e rven çã o i n Carl os Ramos . Exposição retrospe cti va da s ua obra. Lisboa : Fundação Ca louste Gulbenkian Almeida, P.V. (2005). D a Teoria. Oito lições. Porto: E SAP Almeida, P.V. (2013). D oi s Pa râm et ros de A rq ui tectura Postos em Surdina. L eitura crít ica d o I nq ué rit o à ar qu it ectu ra r egion al . C ad ern o 2 . Porto: CE AA Branco , J.F .; Leal , J. ( 1 995) . "Introdu çã o", R ev ist a Lusit an a , Nova Sé ri e, n. 1 3 - 14 Fer lenga, A. (1999). Dimitris P ikionis 1887 - 196 8 , E le cta , Mila no Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 83 Fes sa s - Emmanouil, H. (2001). Essa y on N eoh ell en ic A rch it ectu re. Ath en s Un i versi t y Resea r ch Institute o f Appli ed Co mmun ication Filgueiras, O.L. (1986). Carlos Ramos — A Escola do Porto (1940/69) in Ca rl os Ram os. E xposi çã o ret rosp ectiva da sua ob ra. Lisbo a: Fun d açã o Cal ou st e Gu l ben ki an Frampto n, K. (1983) Towards a Critical Regionalism: S i x Po ints for an Arc hitecture of Resi st ance, i n The Anti- Aesthet ic. Essa ys on Postm ode rn Cult ur e , ed ited by Hal Fost er, Sea tt l e, Ba y P res s Frampto n, K. (1983). Prospects for a C r itica l Re gio na lis m, Per spect a : Th e Yal e Arch i tect ura l Jou rna l , Vol . 2 0 Giacumacato s, A. (1999 ). From Conserv ati sm to Populi sm, P ausi ng at Modernism: The A rch i tec tu re of th e In te r - Wa r P eri od . In 20 th - Centu ry A rch it ec tu re, Gr eec e (pp.27 - 39), Hellenic I n stit ute of A rc hitecture , Athens, and the Deuts ches Arch i tekt ur - Museum, F r ankf urt am Main. Maia, M. H. (2012). From the Por tuguese House to the ‘Popular Arc hi tecture in Por tugal ’: notes on th e cons t ruction of P ortuguese architectur al identity, National Ide ntitie s , spe ci al i ssue: Architec ture and the Con struc tion of Nati ona l Identity , v ol. 14, Iss u e 3 , 2012 Mum ford, E. (2000). The CIAM Disco urse on Urbani sm, 1928 - 1960, Fir st MIT Press paper ba ck edition, 20 02 Or tigão, R. (1896). O Culto da Arte em Por tuga l , Li sb oa, A nt óni o Ma ri a Per ei ra Li vrei ro - Editor Papage orgiou- Venetas, A. (2002). The Architect Dimitris P i kionis (1887 - 1968) and the e xperience of hi s teac hi ng at the Tec hni cal U niver sity of Athens. http://www.p apage or gi ou-venetas . com/s i te/ergasies/4 %20Dimi tr is%20Pik i onis.pd f Perei ra , G. (18 95 ) "E sth eti ca Port ug uez a", A rte Port ug ue sa , Yea r I, n . 2, Li sboa, Febru ar y Pi mentel , D.L. (19 70). Bi ografi a in Raul Lino. Exposi ção retr osp ectiva d a sua ob ra. Lisboa: Fu ndação Calouste Gul benkian Pikionis, D. (1925). Ver nacular Art and Us Theo ch ar opol ou , I. (2 010 ). Na tu re a nd Peop l e. The V ern acu l ar an d t he Sea rch f or a True Gre ek Ar chi tect ure . Mod e rn A rch it ect ur e a nd th e Medi t erra nean .V ern acu la r Dialogue s and contested Id enti ti es, edited by Jean- Fran ç oi s Lejeu n e a nd Michelange l o Sabatino , Routledge Tsiambaos , K. (2014). An Iden ti t y Cri si s of A rc hi tect ura l Cri ti qu e. Arc hi t ectu ral Hi stori es 2(1):6, D O I: h ttp://dx.do i .or g/10.5334/ah.bi Tzoni s, A., Levai fre, L. ( 1981 ). The Gri d an d th e Pathwa y. An i nt roducti on t o th e work of Dimitr is and Sus ana Antona kis. With pr olegome na to a histo ry of the cul t ure of Mod ern Gr e ek a rchi t ectu r e. A rchitectur e in Greece 15/1981 , 164 - 178. Zachos, A. (2011). Vern a cul a r Arch i tect ure Alexandr a Cardoso, Ma ria Helena Maia and Alexandra Trev isan, P ARA LLEL PA TH S 84 Aut hor ide ntif ication Alex an dr a Ca rdo so . A rchi tect ( FA UP, 1 99 4) . I nt egrat ed re s ear che r an d b oa rd member of Centro de Estudos A rnaldo Araújo (CE AA), R&D unit 4041 (FCT); Di rect or of C EA A ( 2 00 3 - 2010). Res ear che r of th e pr oje cts: T he "P opu la r Archite ctu re in Por tugal." A Cr itical Look ( 2010 - 2013 ); So uther n Mo dernisms ( 2014 - 2015 ); Pho tography, Modern Architectur e and the "Escola do Por t o": In terpr eta ti ons on Teó fil o Reg o A rch iv e ( 2014 - 2014 ), and Por tuguese Participa tion in CIAM X ( 2014 ). Last relate d publications, inc lude the bo oks To and F ro: Mode rni sm an d V erna cu l ar A rchi tect ure ( ed.) and D oi s Parâ met ro s de A rqu i tect ura Post os em Su rdi n a. Lei t ura crí ti ca do Inqu é ri to à a rqu i tect ura reg i ona l . Cad ern os 3 and 4 (all with M.H. Mai a and J.C. Lea l, 2013). Alex an dr a Tr evi san . Graduate ( FLUP , 1986) and MSc in History of Art ( FLUP , 1996) and PhD in Arc hitecture (ETSA/UVa, 2013) with the thesis I nterna tiona l I nfluenc es in Opor to Moder n Architec ture b etw een 1926 a nd 1956 . Assi sta nt Prof es s or/ Th eory & Hi s tory D epa rtm ent at ESA P (since 1986 ) teaching History of Moder n Architecture (Arc hitec ture MA) and His tory o f Art , am ong oth er cu rricu la r un it ies. R esea rch e r of t he A rchi tect u ral St ud ies grou p of C ent ro d e Est u dos A rna ld o de Ar aújo (FCT uRD 4 0 41) . Cu rren tl y is PI o f th e rese ar ch p r oject Photography, Moder n Architecture and the "Esc ola do Porto ": Interpre tati ons o n Teóf i lo Rego Arch i ve and re searcher o f the pro ject So ut her n M oder ni sms . Co - editor of th e books L er L e C orb us i er (2012) and Aprop r i a ções d o Mo vi men to Mode rno (2012). Last pape rs: On M od ern Arch i tect u re, p hot og rap h y an d ci t y re adi ngs: Teóf i lo Rego and the “ School of Oporto” wit h M. H. M aia e M ig uel Morei ra Pinto (Athens, 2014); Ph oto grapher and architec ts, a profe ssional co ll abo ration wit h M.H.Maia (Berlin, 2014); A Tra vel l i ng Th eatre ( Por to, 2014) ; P ri mei ra a proxi m açã o às arquitec turas do Sul: instrume ntos possíveis de leitura with A.Cardoso, M. H. Maia and J.Couto ( Lisboa, 2014). Mar ia He len a M aia . G raduate in History /Art and Archae olo g y an d PhD in M odern Archite cture and Restoratio n. Professor at ESAP and preside nt of its Scie ntific Boar d . Direc to r o f CE AA, FCT R&D unit 40 41 and principa l re searcher of its Archite ctural Studies resea r ch group; Researc h er of the projec ts Photo graphy, Mo dern Ar chitecture and the "Es cola do Por to": Inter p retat ions on T e ófi lo Re g o Arch ive ( 2013 - 2015 ), S out hern Mod ern ism s ( 2014 - 2015 ). Las t relate d publications , include the bo oks T o a n d Fro: Mod ern i sm a nd V erna cul a r Arch i tect ure (ed.) and Doi s Pa râm etr os de Ar qu it ectu ra P ost os em S u rdi n a. L ei tu ra crí ti ca d o In qu éri t o à arqu i tec tu ra reg i on al . Ca dern os 3 a nd 4 (all wi th A. Cardoso and J.C. Leal, 2013). Priz es: (1 ) J osé d e Fi gu eired o 2 008 of P ort ug ues e Na tion al Aca dem y of Fi ne A rts; (2) Ignasi de L ecea 2007 - 2008 of Pu bl ic A rt & Desi gn Obse rvat ory – Universi tat de Barcelo na (with M . Acciaiuoli and J. C. Leal). Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 85 TRAVELLING MODERNISMS: The to urs a nd ac qu ainta nces o f Port ugues e archi tect s Rita Alme ida de Car valh o ICS – Universidade de Lisboa / ICS – Un iv e r s ity of Lisbon, Portu gal Abstrac t Wit h a spe cial in ter est i n t he n atu re of th e in te rwar Po rtu gu es e dic tat ori al reg im e, this paper will analy se th e pa th foll ow ed by con tem p o rary Eu rop e an a esth eti c paradigms among the Por tuguese archi tects. The aim is to under stand whether th ese id eas paradi gms wer e in te rna lly abso rb ed a nd ext erna ll y im pli c ated in th e bu ilt env iron men t. T o a chi ev e th is ai m, a rchi t ects ’ t rav els wi ll be rec ons tru ct ed, minding that trav el will be conceptualize d in a br oad sense, e n compassing different conta cts wit h n on - Po rtu gu es e reali ty, suc h a s th roug h p erson al lib rari es, attendanc e to congresses , visits to ex hibitions, study to urs, vacatio n s, e ducati on abro ad, and a cquaintanc e with foreign architec ts . Thi s kn owl ed ge is exp ect ed t o enl igh ten wh eth er cert a in rig ht - wing dictato rial political mo dels, like Nazis m and Fasc ism , w er e app reh en ded and embodied by architects in volved in public buildings' co mmissions; or, conversely , if the aes th etic influenc e of Por t u gu e se long - standing allies, like the United Kingdom and France, was still dominant. Stretc hin g the argument, one might event wonder if the autarchy 's political claims du rin g t he Po rtu gu es e reg im e w er e als o ext en d ed to t h e ar ch it ectu ra l fi eld. All in all, t he resea rch ' s in it ial hy pot hesi s was t hat some a rch it ect s wer e mo re cosmo p olitan than ack no wledged. In pr o ving it, the emphasis put by the a rt history and ar chitec tural his tory on Po rtugue s e at avism los es stre ngth, a s archite cts woul d hav e b een i nsp i red an d in flu enced by as ma ny as th e exi st ent Eu rop ean r eg imes . Keywords: Estado Novo , architecture, transnational mode rni sm, trans n ationa l fasci sm This paper dra ws upon two prem ises . Firs t , as po inted out b y the arc hitect Luiz Cu nha , the Portugue se architecture during the Esta do Novo ( Ne w State ) had a close re lation with th e ind iv id ua l t a st e o f it s suppo rters . Th ese had generally no sign ificant art istic culture, hence refusing what they co u ld not understand (Almei da, P roença & Vaz, 200 6 , p.118 ). T his s tatement matches with what Carlos Ramo s ha d claimed: ‘ we had no oth er job ; we knew that our proposal s would be rejected or amended if no t in ac cordance with national expressio n ’. How ever, th is does not prove th e exi s tence of a n official arch itecture. In fac t, the seco nd premi s e is that, as it was argued by the architect Pedro Vi e ira de Almeida (2 008, p.93 - 96) , there is no such thing as the Estado No vo architecture. As Cunha furthe r explains, in a country where innovati o ns were fe w and where the past was regarded as a Rita A lmeid a de Carv alho, TRAV ELLING MODERNISMS : The tour s and acquaintanc es o f Portug ues e arc hitects 86 paradigm, people preferre d aesthetics roo ted in the past rather than avant - garde moveme nts (Almei da, Pr oença & Vaz, 200 6, p .118 ). It was in fact t he need to adjust arch itects ’ views to the dom inant taste that hampered their adhe sion to the Moder n Movement . This assertion makes the follow ing Carlos Ramos s tatement to se em a mere excuse to continue applying tradit ionalist elements during the dictatorsh ip: ‘ hardly were the ideas and m odern the ories k nown by us ; it c annot be said that w e had gre at convictio ns about what we were doing ’ ( Portas, 196 9). T his paper expect s to demonstrate how close Portuguese architects were to the Eu ropean vangua rd . The researc h is still o ngoing, but s ome prelim inary insights are already po ssible. Th e argument is not new : Jorge Segura do , an architect rece iving many co mmissions f r om the regime, c la i me d it in a hyperbolic manner . First, he consi dered t hat the minister of public work Duarte Pachec o, know n fo r the signif icant development of pub lic build ings , was a narrow and rustic minded, uneduc ate d, unable to quote intellectua ls in a n y c onversations . Converse ly, some architects - amo ng whom were him se lf , Car los Ramos, Ade lino Nunes, Cottine lli Te lmo, Gonçalo de Mello Breyner, Cass iano Branco, Veloso Reis Camelo, Januário Godinho and Viana de L ima - were intell ec tuals who admired Europe an modernist archi tects, such as Wal te r Gropius and Erich Mendels ohn . In h is o p in io n , Portuguese architects' wo rk even ros e above Corbus ier id ea ls (Segura do, 198 9). Rese arc h hyp othe sis Despite the arc hitects' exaggeration , the re searc h hypothesis is t hat at le as t some architects were more co smopolitan than usua lly ackno wledged. Indeed, the emphasis put by art histor y and architectura l history on Portuguese atavism seem s to lo s e s trength whe n considering that architects were inspired an d infl uence d by as many as the existent European reg imes and their particularly architectura l modernisms , these b eing fasci sts or no t . By modernism it is meant a cu ltural and po litica l reaction to the previous status quo , a re action that is identified with a 'te chnolog ical utopianism' (Antliff, 19 97, p.149) and a fas c ination with ‘the impu lse towards the “new”’ ( Shi ach , 2010, p.17 - 1 8). Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regional appr opria tions Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 87 I n 1938 the Nat ional Union of Architects ( Sindicato Nac ional dos Arquitectos - SNA ) founde d under Sal azar' s corpo ratist regi me identif ied 75 archi tects legally working in Portugal 1 .In 1944, Crist ino da Silva argued that in Spain there were hundreds of arc hitects while in Portuga l there was o nly a scant hundred 2 Looking for links, trans ference s and co mmonalties w ith in the interwar dictatorships, th is paper start s o ut i n 193 2 , when Olive ira Salazar became the P residen t of the C ouncil of Mini ster , and ends up in the aftermath of the World War II . This t imeline was not onl y dete rmined by the latter's p o l it ic a l and cultural s ig n if ic a n c e , but also becaus e it marks the date when t he president of the architect’s U nio n was replaced. Architects’ travels w ill be scrutinized, m inding that trave l will be co nceptualized in a broad se nse . It encompass es architects ' different contac ts with no n - Portuguese lif e , such as attendance to congresse s, visits to e xhibition s , study to urs and vacat ions, education and training abro ad, personal libraries, and acquaintance s with foreign architects . . The re searc h is grounded on th e se architects' life paths and their profess ional and intellec tual pract ices . Inf ormal n et w ork i ng A rchitects maintained one to one co ntacts wi th several renowne d foreign architects . It is known that Pardal Monteiro was fr iend with Pierre Vago (1910 - 2002) with whom he exchange d private corre spondence. Monte iro was also friend with André Bloc ( 1896 - 1966), founder of the Archite cture d’Aujourd’hui and the Réunion I nternational d’Arc hitectes (RIA), who knew we ll Le Corbus ier (1857 - 1965) , Augus te Pe rret ( 1874 - 1954) and H enri Sauvage (1873 - 19 32). Like Perret, Monteiro a ls o attend ed to the RIA meeting i n Rome in 1933 3 1 Min ute nº 1 84 of th e Nationa l Union of Arc h itects board, 7 December 1938. . 2 Third Congr ess of Federaciòn de Ur banismo y de la V ivienda, 1944. 3 I t is plau sible tha t in 193 7 M onteiro h ad gone to A lger ia along w ith Dua rte Pa checo to watch the work s of the author of the Ch urch of Notre Dame du Raincy , A ugu ste Perret : Cathédrale d'Oran ( 1912), Maison de l'Ag ricu lture (1932) , Burea ux du Gouver nement Rita A lmeid a de Carv alho, TRAV ELLING MODERNISMS : The tour s and acquaintanc es o f Portug ues e arc hitects 94 7. Re vista de Arquitectura – Journ al of the Sociedad Central de Arquitectos fro m A rgentina, identified with art nouveau but w h ic h reproduce d Le Corbusier, Gropius, Mendelsohn, Mies van der Ro he texts (Ménd ez, 2010) . 8. Arqui tectura e Urbanism o , published by I nstituto de Arqu itecto s do Brasil; 9. Cuade rnos de Arquite ctura , pub lished by Co lé g io O f ic i a l de Arquitectos de Cataluña y Ba leares ; 10. Casabe lla, first publis hed by an editorial committee that include d Giuseppe Pagano (193 3 - 1953) ; 11. Arc hitettura, journal o f the Italian Fascist U nion ; 12. Ro yal Institute of Britis h Archite cts Journal. The ge neralized idea of Portugue se archite cts' lack of knowledge on the international arch itecture seems to lose strength. After all, thes e journals disseminated the work o f the modernist architects in Europe , assembling different aesthe tic and ide o lo g ic a l s t an c es . Po rtugue se Pre ss Information about the M odern Mo vement in the Portugues e s p e c ia liz e d jou rnal Arquite ctos ( 1938 - 1942) preva iled over cla ss ic is t and vernac ular buildings , though these design pl ans we re als o reproduced 12 12 Some ex amples are the m odernists Virg ile Bierbauer (a Hunga ri an member of CIA M) , Howa rd Robertson (memb er of CIAM), Nicolosi Giu seppe, Lászlo K rálik , Ang elo A. Murgel , R. H. Uren, Alfred K asiner; th e fascist mo dernist s Calza Bini, Rafael Fagnoni; t he re gio nalist Albert Laprade, and the classicist Alber t Edward R i chardson . . H owever , more radical architect ural solutions were discarded. The Portugues e journal als o pro moted acquaintances betwee n national and foreign architects. Laprade, Mustafa Be y Fahmi and Will iam Lez case , for instance, were invited to collaborate w ith th e A rquitectos . A ll of t hem acce pted, although Lezc ase did not publ ish anything w ithin the jo urnal. Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regional appr opria tions Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 95 Besid es speciali ze d j ournals, gene ralist magaz ines also pub lished pictures and articles about new architectural tendenc ies. It is the case o f A Esfer a , a pro - Nazi and pro -F ascist journal. It disc losed the ne w German churche s and highlight ed the church of Charlottenburg designed by Gustave A dolf 13 .O ne of its co vers even published the Nurem berg tribu ne of honour 14 . In 192 5 t he Soviet pavilion in the Internationa l Exposition of M odern I ndustrial and Deco rative Arts was replicated in the Europa along with the de scription of some pavilions : Czech osl ovaki a (Josef Gočá r), Austri a (Joseph Ho ffmann) and Soviet Un ion (Konstantin M elnikov) . The train stat ion in Ha drec Králové , als o p lanned by Jos ef Gočár illustrat es an article written by Cot tinelli Te lmo in Boletim da CP . Ano ther article, a lso wr itten by Cott inelli, is acc ompanied by a picture of the Karl Marx - Hof , a b uilding comp lex that held 1,382 apartments , wi th the f oll owi ng s ubti tle: ‘ social housing in Vienna , remark able work that has excee ded our e xpectations ’ 15 In othe r words, th e Union not only provided access to international architecture v ia its library and exchang e policy, as it pu blished itse lf illustrat ions of the work that was being done througho ut Europe. Th is is t r ue also true for othe r kind o f publications. . In 1934 p ictures of the Corbusier work were published in the Magazine Bertrand while the bookl et Lisboa Orie ntal by M anuel Vicente Mo reira quoted some Corbusier’s sent ences (Tous saint, 2013, p. 204). Prof essio nal Ass ociat ions SNA established l ink s with other pro fessional associations s uch as th e Instituto Central dos Arquitecto s from Brazil and the Royal I nstitute of Br it is h Arch itects 16 13 A Esfe ra , 77, 20 October 1943. . Nestor de Figueiredo was made honorary membe r of the SNA and Pardal Monte iro became an hono rary member of the Brazil ian institute in 1940. RIBA o ffered assistance and i ts library to the Portugue se Uni on's mem bers sta yin g in London . José Luís Monteiro, Crist ino da Silva e 14 A Esfe ra , 80, November 1943. 15 Boletim da C P, December 1935 and Decemb er 1936. 16 Min ute of th e Nationa l Union of Arch itects b oard, 26 Septemb er 1938 . Rita A lmeid a de Carv alho, TRAV ELLING MODERNISMS : The tour s and acquaintanc es o f Portug ues e arc hitects 96 António Couto be came its ho norary me mbers . Pardal Mo ntei ro was also mem ber of the S ocieté Centrale de L ’ Architecture de Belgique a nd P e dro Muguruza was a memb er of SNA. Some architects belong ed to other associati o ns. Pardal Monte iro was the Portuguese re presentative i n the RIA and , betwe en 1931 and 1933, Segurado was member of the Internatio naler Verband Für Wohnugswesen ( International Ass ociation for House and Planning) based in F rankfurt (Galvão, 2003, p.322 ) . Study ing abr oad and prof ess ional t rainin g Some P o rtuguese architects s tudied abro ad . S ur p r is in g ly , none of th em seems t o hav e been particularly modern and ce rta in ly n o t modernis t . José Augusto M agalhães atte nded the Sch o ol of Fine Arts of t he U niv e rs it y o f R io Vasco Regaleira, Jos é Augusto de Magalhães and Augusto José Maria Rodrigues da Silva studied at the Ro yal Institute of British Architects . R a u l Lino was educated in Germany and England . Antóni o José d e Brito e Cunh a , José Ma rques da Sil va , Manue l Marques and David Mo reira da Silva obtained the French Government degree of Graduate Architect. Fe rnando de Barro s Santa Rita a ls o graduated with a fore igner degre e. And Cri s tino da Silva was an inter arch itect in P a r is , working in Vic t o r La lo u x' s st ud io . Tr avellin g abro ad Apart from vacations, mo st of the Portuguese architects who com posed the restrict elite that worked for the state travelled a broad on behalf of the gover nment . Fo r each building program, the minister of Pub lic Work Duarte Pache co ( 1932 - 1936, 1938 - 1943) created a three members c ommiss ion. Usually , it gathered an engineer, an archite ct and someone related with the function al program o f the planned bu ilding. Thes e members travelled in order to learn fro m the s im i la r ex pe r ien c e s in other co untries. T he program for the Nationa l Stadi um competi tion , for e xampl e , was designed Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regional appr opria tions Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 97 accordingly to the learning of a member of the commission during a study trip 17 Usually, Monte iro’s study tours take no t least than o ne month and sometimes it makes s ens e spe aking about grand tour s. . For that reason, s ome went on a multiple dest ination tour. The e ngineer Eduardo R odrigues de Ca rvalho and Parda l Mo nteiro , for instance, went on a long trip to study maritime stations. Whe n writing the report, the engineer e xplained that the Lisbon 's maritime stations were planned after carry ing out a comparat ive study w ith its congene rs abroad: the maritime stations of Ve rdon, Cherbourg and Le Havre, in Franc e ; and the Geno a (two stations) and Trieste buildings , in Ita ly. Although they did not go to No rth A merica, the two autho r s as sert ed to have a ls o taken in to considerat ion the Los Ang eles ma r iti me stati on 18 Some of these arc hitects stayed for long per iods outside P ortugal. Fo r example, Jorge Se gurado spent a f ul l year in the USA preparing the Portuguese pavilion for the 1939's New York World's F air. A letter from to Pardal Monte iro shows the impact the trips had on the architec t ' vie w s: . I am convinced th at A mericans are the m asters o f construc tion. As you kno w, h ere , there are outstanding professionals : architects, planners and enginee rs ; however, what we thought o f America in that side of the Atlantic falls f ar short of d irect impress ions. To know the entrepre neurial s trengt h of the Am er ica n s is mandatory to come up here. Prepare yo ur bags and come. Look, bring Pacheco with yo u , because what you see here cann ot be seen in Eu rope 19 Analysing the Portug ues e architects des tinations, one might be s urprised to find out they travelled more around before the end of Second Wo rld War. However, it must be mi nd ing that in that period th ey wer e young er a nd support ed by the Minister of Pub lic Works who died in a car accident in 1943. From then onwards , the Ministers of Public Work succumbed to . 17 IRHU, P T CA ONEL - 0093/01 – Documents concer ning th e Stadium competiti on. 18 IHRU , PT DGEM N:DSARH - 005/125 - 46 86/05 - D iver s: m aritime sta tions / R eport 6 Marc h1936. 19 Pa rdal Mon teiro Stu dio Ar chive, Fold 69 – Nation al Stadium, Lett er from 22 Septemb er 1938. Rita A lmeid a de Carv alho, TRAV ELLING MODERNISMS : The tour s and acquaintanc es o f Portug ues e arc hitects 98 Salazar ’s wi ll , who always have preferred savings rather than expensive building programmes (and journe ys) . Th e absenc e of Ger man after the World War II , once the Bauhaus ' sie g e , requires further compre hens ion. Travel s to Eu ropea n Countri es Destinatio n 1890 - 1945 % Destinati on 1946 - 1968 % 1 France 57 29% 1 Euro pe ( not discri minate ) 15 32% 2 Spai n 54 28% 2 France 10 21% 3 Ger many 19 10% 2 Sp ain 9 19% 4 Ita ly 18 9% 3 Italy 4 9% 5 Belgium 15 8% 3 Switzer land 4 9% 5 Netherla nds 15 8% 3 Eng land 4 9% 6 Engl and 13 7% 4 Belgium 1 2% 7 Euro pe (n ot disc riminate ) 4 2% 195 100 % 47 100 % Pers onal l ibr aries This r estr ict ed elite of architec ts also collec ted fore ign books on architecture purchased bo th in Portugue se boo kstores and during the ir stays abroad. It i s poss ibl e to access some of these personal librar ies through the stud ios of Pardal M onteiro, do nations to publ ic libraries - Cottine lli Te lmo, Adelino Nunes, K eil do Amaral, Dav id Oliveira Lop es - and the archives of D G E M N , MOP, CA POPI. A lthough th is research is not yet c oncluded and probably many libraries were inc ompl ete and dismantled , some preliminary concl usions can be drawn. The an a lys is was carried out taking into accoun t Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regional appr opria tions Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 99 the canonical archite ctural books ident ified by Sarah Goldhage n 20 Recalling that the se arc hitects trave lled abroad, one might ques tion if the absence of these fundamental boo ks on modernism was a matt er of choice, rather than opportunity, as re currently implicit in the h istory of Portuguese architecture. The explanation can a lso be more prosaic: the bo oks we re still in the hands of the ir families or we re so ld in us ed book s hops. . Parda l Monte iro and the SN A were t he only o nes that ha d Corbus ier's books. However , none of them bought Vers une architecture (1923) but rather La Ville R adieuse (1935). Pardal Monte iro was the onl y one to have the b oo k from Gustav Ado lf Pl atz, Baukunst der N eueste n Zeit ( 1927). Montei ro al so possessed the Groszstadt Archite ktur by Ludw ig Hilbe rseimer ( 1927). DGEM N, A delino Nunes and Pardal Mo ntei ro had the A lberto Sartoris' Gli elementi de ll'archite ttura fuzionale (1932) . Absent from all the libraries were the works written by or on Walter Gropius, Ado lf Behne, Walter Curt Behrendt , He nry - Russel H itch cock , N iko laus Pe vsne r. For eign arc hitects working i n Port ugal Portuguese architects acquaintances w ith fore ign architects were a ls o promoted within the national terr itory. S ome French, German and Itali an archi tects such as Do na ld - Alfre d Agache, Étienne de Grö er , Ch ar le s Sic l is, Hermann D ie s te l, Marcelo P i acentini, G iorgio Calza Bini and G iovanni Muz io were invited to work in Portuga l. Ther e are also som e G erman landscape architects to be considered: He in r ic h W i e pk ing - Jürgens mann, Himmler's adviser and fr iend who had worke d in the Berlin Stadium ; Ge org Gunder, 20 This includes: Le Co rbusier, Vers une a rchitec ture . P aris 1923; Walt er Gropius, Inter nation ale Arkite k tur . Mu nich, 1925; A do lf Beh ne, Der modern e Zweckbau . Munic h, 1926; Walt er Curt B ehrendt, Der S ieg des new en Baustils , S tuttgart, 192 7; A dolf G ustav Platz , Die Ba uk unst d er ne ues te n Zei t . Berl in, 1927; S i gfried G iedion, Baue n i n Fra nkre ich, Bauen i n Eise n, Baue n i n E ins enb et on . Leipezig, 1928; Lu dwig Hilberseim er, Int er natio nal ene ue Bauk uns t . Stuttga rt, 1928; H enry - Russel, Hitch cock, Modern Arc hitectur e: Roman ticism and Rein tegration . New Yo rk, 1929; Br uno Tau t, Modern Arc hitectur e . London , 1929 ; Hitc hcock and Philip J ohnson , The In ternation al Style: Arch itecture sinc e 1922 . N ew York, 1932; Alberto Sa rtoris, Gli e lementi d ell' archite ttu ra fu zionale . Mi lan. 1932 ; Niko laus Pevsner, Pion eers of Moder n Design from W illiam Mor ris to Walter Gropius . London, 1937; Sigfried Giedion, Spac e, Time a nd Architectur e . Ca mbridge, Mass ., 1941. See G o ldhagen , 2005, p. 145. Rita A lmeid a de Carv alho, TRAV ELLING MODERNISMS : The tour s and acquaintanc es o f Portug ues e arc hitects 100 who w orked on the Rei ch 's sport field a nd Olympic village in 1936 ; an d espec ially Konrad Wiesner, who had worked in the Nuremburg's stadium. Qu otat ions on th e Modern Movement In 1931 Segurado made a referenc e to Corbusier while lecturing in M adrid under the topic Un M aison, Un Palais ( Gal vão , 2003, p.25 2). Rogéri o de Azeved o, in a conferen ce held i n 1934 , consi stently quoted the Fr ench architect Le Corbus ier (T oussaint, 2013, p.204). In turn, Rau l Lino, in the book en titl ed Auriverde Jo rnada argued that Lúci o Costa inte nded to re in fo r ce h is o pin io n wit h Le Corbusier’s s tatements (Lino, 1937) . Cottinelli T elm o ment i oned Le Corbus ier as follow ing: ‘ A s mart French architect, an agitator to whom we all owe recognition, w ho is able to defend lies with the same intellige nce that sus tains truths, who created the formula of "house : living machine". Th is was funny when was ne w; today , is b o r in g , I think it is of an ignoble romanticism. Why a machi ne? M ay I be w he n ima g in i ng myself as a d ishwashe r? How can I get satisfact ion while imagining myse lf as something enter ing home through a do or and go ing out clea n, dresse d, satiated, kee ping a cigarette in the corner of my mouth ?’ 21 Cleary, Portuguese architects where informed about the Mode rn Movement. Whereas they adhered to it is a different iss ue requiring further res earch. . T h e re is a ls o a Pardal Monteiro 's te xt referring important arc hitects of the Mode rn Movemen t: Ott o W agner, in Austr ia; P eter Behre ns, Bruno Taut and Mendel sohn in Germany; D udok in Hol la n d ; Ostberg in Sweden; and Le Corbusier, ' the m ost disc ussed o f polemicists of arc hitecture '. These a re , he argued, ‘the dr ivers of new ideas ’ in architec ture (Monte iro, 1950). Concl usio n The fol lowi ng episode summ ari zes the argument of this paper: Jorge Segurado wante d to build a ten stor ey buil d ing with one hundred apartments to lodge inte llectuals and ar tists . However, Salazar, no t sharing 21 I sabel C ottinelli Telmo A rchiv e, text probably written in 1938. Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regional appr opria tions Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 101 Cottinelli’s v iews regarding the huge apartment b lo c k , vetoed the pro posal, recalling what had happe ned during the Austrian Civil War in 19 34. The Karl Marx Hof was the scene of a workers’ repression carried on by Dollfu ss Austro - fascists (Segurado, 1989) . S alazar re presented the general taste and , as Pardal Monte iro stated in a confe re n ce , ' the Portuguese a rchitects worried about the ir e arnings, follo w de publi c taste, suc cumbed to the wishes o f the tasteless and ignorant owners, practicing an architec ture that tends to be the opposite of what it s ho uld be ': ni ce façade, rich materials, and non - functional de sign 22 In conclusion , it was the nationalist pres sure on the elite that j eopardize d the architects' modernist impetus. I n the e nd, highly depending on the state, architects gav e in o n the ir thoughts and did what the re gime expect ed . T hey accept ed the recommendations of the state 's agencies headed by individuals adverse to the va nguard move ment, in line with Salazar's views , and attuned to the taste of the private secto r . That ended up g iv ing r is e to a m it iga t e d mode rnism , a mode rn classic ism and a vernacular tradit ionalism . How ever, it canno t be said that the Portuguese architecture ste ms from arch itects' ignoranc e. . Ackno wledgment s Thi s p ap er was written with i n the projec t Publi c Wo rks and po li tica l re gi mes: the New S tat e i n a compa ra ti ve p ersp ecti ve fun ded by FCT – Fu ndação para a Ciênc ia e Tec n ologia (FCT: SFRH / BPD / 68725 / 2010). I would like to th ank Jo ão and Manuel Pardal Monte i ro and Isabe l Cottinelli T el mo who prov ided me with access to th eir family arc hi v es. Refere nces Almeida, E, Proença, J., & Vaz, R. (2006). Entrevista a Luiz Cunha. A Obra Nasce , 3. Almeida, P. (2008). Apontamentos para uma Teor ia da Arquitectur a. Li sbon: Li vros Hori z ont e. 22 Pa rdal Mon teiro Stu dio A rchive, Fold 64A, 'Para ond e vai a arq uitect ura', Pardal d e Monteiro con ference h eld in Augu st 1945. Rita A lmeid a de Carv alho, TRAV ELLING MODERNISMS : The tour s and acquaintanc es o f Portug ues e arc hitects 102 An tli ff, M. (19 97 ). La Ci t é fra nçai se: Georg e V al oi s, L e C orbu si er , an d F as ci st Theori es of U rban i sm. M. A ntl iff an d M. Aff ron ( eds.) , Fascist Visions: Art and Ideo l ogy in Fr an ce and Italy (149- 170). Prin cet on , NJ: P ri ncet on U ni v ersi t y Pre ss. Az ul ay - Ta pi ero, M. (2 01 0 ). Cé sar Co rt en l a Pri m era R eun i ón Inte rna ci ona l de Arquitecto s y Viaje de Estudios or gani zado por L’architec tu re d’A ujourd’hui e n U.R.S.S . y en Polon i a. In AAVV, Via jes en l a t ra n sici ón d e l a a rqu it ectu r a espa ñ ola hacia la modernidad . P am bl on a: Escuel a Técn i ca S up eri or d e A rqu i tect ura - Un i versi da d de Na va rra . Galvão, A. (2003). A Caminho da Mo d ernidade. A traves sia po rtugue sa, ou o c a so da obr a de Jorge Segurado com um exemplo de complexidade e co ntr adição n a arquitec tura (1920 - 1940) . Lisb on: U ni versi ty L usí ad a, Ph D Thesi s. Goldhagen, S. (2005). Some th ing to talk about. Mod e rni sm , di scou rs e, s tyl e. Jou rnal of th e S oci ety of Arch it ect ura l Hist ori an s , 64 (2), 145. Lin o, R. (19 37). A u riv er de J orn ad a – R ec orda çõ es d e u ma vi agem a o B ra sil . L isbon: Ed. Valentim de Carvalho. Martins, J. (1995). Cottinelli Te lm o (1897 - 1948). A Obra do Arquitecto . Lisbon: New Un iv ersi ty of Li sbo n, Mast er The sis. Ménde z, P. (2 010). Fotografías e n revistas de arquitec tu ra: un discur so de la mod ernidad e n Buenos Air es. 1930 - 1950. at rio , 15 - 16 (2009 - 2010). 172 - 3. Mont ei ro, P. (1950). Eug éni o do s San to s. Pr ecu rs or d o U rba ni smo e d a Arqu it ectu ra Mode rna . Lisboa: Municipal de L i sboa. Ninhos , C . (2012). 'Com luvas de ve l udo': A estraté gi a cultur al alemã em P o rtugal (1933 - 1945). Relaç õe s Int erna ci ona is , 201, 103 - 11 8. Por ta s, N. (1969). Carlos Ramos (1897), Walter Gropius (1883) – In m emo ri an . Diário de Notícias , 17 Jul y 1969. Segu rad o, J . (19 89 ). En t revi st a a J org e S eg ura do. J orn al A rq ui tect os , 76, 15 - 8. Shi ach, Mo rag (2010) . Peri odi zi n g M odern i sm. In P et er Br ooke r, An d re zej Ga si orek , Debo rah L ongw ort h, An d rew T hac ke r ( eds .), Th e Oxf ord Handb ook of M odern ism s . Oxf ord Un i versi ty Pres s, 17 - 30. Tost ões, A. (2009 ). Pardal Monte i ro. Lisbon: Círculo de Leitores. To us saint , Mi chel (20 13). Da A rq ui t ectu ra à T eo ri a. Li sbon: Cal ei d oscópi o. Autho r identific atio n Rita Alm eid a de Carv al ho . I s a p ost - d oct o ral r esea rch f ellow at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon. Working on the Estado Novo dictators h ip, her resea rch ha s b een cent red on ar chi tect ur e an d powe r. 103 GR EE K MODER NITIES IN THE INTER - WAR PERI OD: A rchitectural C o ntrad ictions between N eoclas sicis m and R egion alism Vass ilios C olonas Department o f Architec ture / Uni versity of Thessal y / Volos Abst ract Afte r the Trea ty of Lausanne in 1923, whic h resulte d the exchange of popula tions betw een Tu rk ey a nd G re ece, a s t he Gr eeks f orm ed t he ms elv es i nt o t hei r ow n nation s tate, artists and intelle ctuals gradually turne d f rom the ir previous practic e of revi ving histor ical styles and concentrate d instead on the quest for new m ean s of e xpr es sion , seek in g to red efin e a u ni qu ely Gr eek qu ali ty in t he ar ts. A s t h e intelle ctual and artis tic co mmunities d ebated how best they might «return to the ir roots» , y oun g ar chi te cts react ed ag ain st t he a cadem i c arch ite ct ure of th e Eur opea n schools and turned for their insp iration to the study of traditio n al architectur e, laying the foundatio ns for a mid dle way in Gree k architecture – betw een th e r evi val of c lass icis m and th e em erg ence of m ode rni sm. Keywords: Neoc l assici sm, Regi onalism , “Retu rn to our r oots” m ovement, M ode rnism, H. Hébrard . After the T reaty of Laus anne in 1923 , which re sulted the exc hange of populations betwee n Turkey and Gree ce, as the Gree ks formed themselves into the ir own nation state, artists and inte llectuals gradually turned from their previous pract ice of reviving h istorica l styl e s and conce ntrated instead on the ques t for new means o f express ion, seeking to redefine a uniquely Gre ek quality in the arts. As the intellectual and artistic communities de bated how best they might return to their roots , young architects reac ted against the academic architectur e o f the European sc hools and turned for their inspiration to the study o f traditiona l architecture , laying the foundat ions fo r a middle way in Gree k architecture – between t he revi val of classi c i sm an d the emer gence o f moder nism. As the new nation states bro ke free of the great European empires architects turned to the medieval tradit ions of the ir respective c ountries to assert a ne w identity in contrast to the publ ic image of the pre vious regimes. Vass ilios Colonas , GREEK MODERN ITIES IN THE INTER - WAR PERIOD: Ar chitec tural Contradictio ns between Neoclassicism and Regional ism 110 reforms of V enizelos’ li beral government ( 1928 - 1932), fa iled in aes thet ic terms to avoid a sterile interpretation of trad ition through the neo - Byzantine style and the use of neo - Byzantine features to mask what was in all respe cts a modern bu ilding. One need to wait several years for a genuine interpretation of tr adition, a better integrat ion with the c limate and the landscape, the us e of local materials, and ultimately the spontaneo us submiss ion of th e form to function. A new regionali s m in search of a “Greeknes s”, as a conti nuat ion of the movement "R e turn to our roots" an d contrary to the international character o f post World War I I modernism, wo uld be deve loped gradual ly to peak in the late 50s, with main repre sentatives Dimitr i Pikion is and particu larly Aris Konstantinid is. References Choay, F (1960): L e C orbus ier . N. Y ork: Bra zi l l er Colonas, V (2012). Thessaloniki 1912 - 2012, O ne Hundred Years o f Ar chi tect ur e . T he ss alo nik i: Un ive r sit y St udio Pr e ss. (in G re e k) Demange l , R (1926). Une maison de plaisance n éo-g r ecqu e su r l es b ord s du Gol fe d e C ori n th e, L’ Ar chitecture XXXIX, 12). 149 - 154 . Frampto n, K (1996). Cr itic al r eg iona lis m . I n K. Nes bi tt (Ed.), Th eori zi n g a new agenda f or architecture, N. York 1996, (p p.468 - 482). Ne w Yor k, NY:P rineton Arch i tect ura l Pres s. Th e IV Int ern at i ona l Con gres ses of M od ern A rch it ectu re . Technika C h ronika . Athens, 193 4: Technical Chamber of Greece. 995 - 1087. (i n Gre ek) Note s sur l ’ a rch i tec tu re gre cq ue mod ern . Cah ie rs d ’ Art , 1934 ( 1- 4). 11 8 - 121. Dimitris Pikio nis (1887 - 1968). Αthens : Moraitis Foundation . ( i n Gre ek) South e rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 111 Aut hor ide ntif ication Vass ilio s Co lo nas . Graduated fro m the Sch oo l of Architec ture of Ar i stotle Univer sity of Thessaloniki. Continued his studies in Paris, in the fields of the conse r vatio n and restoration o f historic buildings and monuments, A rt History and Mus eol ogy. Ea rned his d octo rat e f rom t he S ch ool of A rch it ect ur e, A ris tot l e Univer sity , in 1992. Since 200 3, Professor of Architectur al History in the Dep. of Arch it ectu re of th e Un iv ers ity of Th ess aly in V ol os. H a s ta ken pa rt i n n u mer ous sc ientific co nferences in Gree ce and abro ad and publis hed studies in Gree k and forei gn bo oks an d p eri od ica ls an d w a s m emb er of nu me rou s resea rch p rog ra ms relat ed to th e a rchi te ctu ral he rit age i n Gr eec e a nd th e Ea ste rn M ed iter r an ea n and Black Se a countries of the 19 th - 20 th cent uri es . 112 Th e GATCPAC as the Bar celo na’s Medit err eanean crit al Region alism backgr ound Sara C osc arelli C omas EINA , Centre Universitari de Disse ny i Art d e Barc elona. Adscri t a la UAB /EINA, Graduate Schoo l of Design and Art in Barc elona. Aff iliated to UAB , Barce lona, Spain Abst ract During the Spanish Civil War , and the p ost war, too, B a rcel ona dev elop s an arch it ectu ral attitude in order t o e sc ape of th e academic ism imposed by th e r egim e , seeking a n ew language that maintain s the prog re ssiv e an d emancipator po stulate s that initially procl aim ed the Mod e rn Mov em ent , but to re cover t he va lu es of t h e M edit er ranea n popular tradition: Mediterrane an C ritical Regionalism . Howev e r , t her e is an i mp ortan t b ackg round, rep re sen t ed by the archi tect ura l gr oup GATC PAC , dur ing the thirties , which make this ar chitectur e incline the balance to wa rds a cert ai n regionalism rat her t han to d o it t owards the s tandardized uniformity of the Internatio nal Style . Th e humanization of a rc hi tect ure and its integration with rea l pro ductions of local con text a re its main objectives . With the pa rticipation of GATCPAC to the CIAM , es p ecially the one i n Athens in 1933 , it will be share d with other south Eur opean countr ies, s uch as It aly, Gre ece and t he south of F ran ce, t he se reg ion a list tren ds , th at w er e s tart in g g rowi ng simultaneously. Thus , the Med ite rran ea n con text a cqu ir es during the thirt ies a kind of mythographic identity for a Eur op ea n in tellige nce fleei ng th e abu se of an alienat ing mechanistic ideol og y , such as the big metropolis of contempor ary civilizatio n . Th ere i s a ferv en tl y desi re o f ar chi tectu ral r enai ssanc e , based o n a more authentic dimensio n than the one hi th erto existing , and on the contac t with a vi rg in and unc ontaminated traditio n wh er e humans ca n participate of exi st ent ia l an d rep r es ent at ive f orm s linked to the local s ens e of b elong in g . In co nclusio n, th e ref eren c e to local tradition becom es an open cri tici sm of c erta in aspect s of m ode rni ty. Hi sto rical , a rt isti c, topographic and c limatic roots , as well as the identitar y strength of th e Medi te rran ean , will be too st rong to l et t he msel v es b e car ried away by th e radical Germa n cen tra li sm . Keywords: GATCP AC, th i rti es, Ba rc el on a, arc h itec tu re, M edi t erran ea n No style, no school's deco rative worries and practiced by people who haven't had another teacher that the ' constructive' tradition ( ...) the popular Mediterrane an architecture has , for t hese reason s, som e constants that are repeate d throughout all M editerranean countries. ( . ..) Main features c ommon t o this arch itecture are its el ements: doors, windows , porch es, e tc., all on a human scale and a com plete abs ence of superfluous decorative motifs and absurd contrivances . I f any of i ts deta ils could be interpreted as de corative, it is almos t always derived from the Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 113 construc tion, wi th s o me rational basis that rei nforces it ( AC nº 18 wr iters, 1935 , pag. 15). Wit h th is quote GATC PA C (Catalan Group of Architects and Technicians for the Progress o f Contempora ry Architecture) posi t i oned itself de f i n it e ly in defense of the m odern architecture of Mediterranean tradit ion , f u l ly co ntextualized in the interwar period and , in the ory, do minated by megalomaniac Modern Mov ement . Le Corbusier' medit err anean ism : the key role for GAT C PAC The ori gins of GATCP AC's lat in ize w i l l go es back to the m id - twe nties, before th e creation of the gro up, at the time of Josep L lu is Se rt youth and h is encounter with Le Corbusier . T hree years afte r the publi c ation of Vers una A rchitecture ( 1923), and as a res ult of the Catalan first trip to Paris when still a s tudent of architecture, acqu ires the book , later shown to hi s colleagues . Thi s is their first contact with the modern architecture. F ro m Oscar Mig ue l Ares ’ poi nt of view Catalan architects ha d become fai t hfu l alli es of Le Co rbusier regard ing th e c la im of the new arc hitecture in relation to the Central European thoug ht. Ares c it e s an int e re s t in g phrase of Josep Maria Ro v ir a : Le Corbusier had a bias against Northe rn cultures that h e al ways fe lt different from the ide al of order that the Me diterranean civilizat ion o ffered him and, s ince 1911, his [ f irst] journe y to the East , had idea lized in th e image of the Parthen on , the real pro tagonist o f Vers une architecture . And in the end of the decade Le C orbu sier delves in to the Mediterranean regional univers e in order to face the pr oblems of the real and not abstract human bei ng , commo n and concre te , through th e knowledge that can fac ilitate th is direct approac h and generate f ul ly tes table realism even i n the wor ld of represe ntation (Le Corbusier (a) , 2006) . The links begin to interwe ave when Le Cor busier goes to Barcel ona to give a lecture in M a y 19 28 a nd Sert and T orres Clave show him the Hotel on the beach proje ct ( Pizza, A. (ed.); R o vir a , J . M . (ed.), 2006) . And a few months later, Sara C oscarelli , The GATC PAC as the Barcelo na’s Mediterre anean critic al Regionalis m bac kground 114 along with other c lassmates , including S ix t I llescas , the y undertake a study tour for almost two mo n ths in Europe. Among other c it ie s vis ite d , they choose agai n Pa r is . Se rt returns in J anuary of the fo llowi ng year , le a v in g the u n ive r s it y fo r three months , he started working in Le Corbusier's studio fact t hat will create a turning po int i n the fu ture all the Cata lan modern architecture . In the editorial of the first issue of Plans magaz ine , Le Co rbusier wrote: " R e a l human exp ression in its n a tu r a l e le m e nt , able to fac ilitate the ac hievement of its fullness. Develop ment of t he human c ivilizat ion where men do minate the tyranny of machines des igned for comfort, will be he ld again in the universe" (Le Corbusi er (b ), 19 31) . T his idea is even more e mphasized during the IV CI AM he ld in Athens in the summer of 1933 wh ere again GATCP AC membe rs me t Le Co rbusier . On ly the Catalan de legation of GATEPAC ( Sert, Torres Clave , Ribas S eva and Bonet Castellana ) part icipate and pres ents three collages with graph ics and mappings carried out on Barce lona , the project o f the Ci ty of Rest and Holidays, the s tate of progres s of Pla n M ac ia and s everal proj ective essays about workers' ho using (Pizza , 2006 , pag 76) . GATC PAC's an ti n orth icism In 1930 , co in c id in g w ith the e nd of the dictatorship of Pr imo de R ivera, Fernando Garcia Mercadal , along with Manuel Aizpúrua , Sert and To rres Clav e , founded in Zaragoza GATEPAC , with the aim of prom oti ng rati onal is m in S p ain and as the opening to the developing European trends and at the same time , become s the Spani sh secti o n of the ne w ly c reated management bo dy during CIAM II , the CIR PAC (Interna tiona l Com m it tee for the Sol ution of th e Probl ems of the Contemporary Arc hitecture ) . In addition, obtaining the r igh t of first pub lication of the work o f its members ( for all Spanish - speaking countries ) that the AC magazine has, promo tes it internat ionally. From 29 Mar ch to 2 April 1932, GATCPAC organi ze s in Barcelona the meet i ng of CIR PAC to prepare the IV C IAM in Athe ns . Fo r the fi rst time the meet ing takes Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 115 place in a n env ironment away from the predo minant European co ntin ental centralism and is s ituated within the Medite rranean shores . Of all the GATEPAC's se cti ons , the most su ccess fu l is the Catal an one . T he group is fo rm ed in B ar c e lon a in 1930 and its main me mbers are Se rt and To rres Clave , together with R a imo n D uran R ey na ls , Ge rmán Rodríguez Arias, Joan Baptista Subirana and Sixt Ille scas . Becau se it mai nta ins co ntacts with the Catal on ia n Gover nment , they d o many pub lic work s which a llows a be tter and broade r dis s e m ina t io n of th e mov ement and its ideals. T he ir proj ects aim to make a more h uman and natural architecture ; a regionalist arch itecture , interested in the actual producti on of the local context , an environmental architec ture , able to interact product ively with the peculiarit ies of the si te. The aim is to make a different and simple architecture, that has the ability to combine the different sp e c if ic it ie s of each pl ace and that is against the un if o rm ity of standardization. Wh i le GA TCPAC' s primary objec tive i s to promote the Central European avant - garde architecture , followi ng the con cl us ion of the IV CIAM it s manifestations begin to opt gradual ly towards a more spiritual k in d of archite ctural concepti on . In fact, in ea r ly 1 934 , the confer ence Ser t gives at the Alu mni Associ ati on of the College of Arc hitecture, clearly shows the di s tance that e x ist s with re spect to the radical rationalist north . Se rt divided the confer ence i nto three parts. T he f irs t analyzes se veral moments o f modern architecture and concludes that it does not consi der the s piritual needs of the individual and , th erefore, is d ef ic ie n t and inc o mp le t e : The theori es of modern architecture le d architects of som e cou ntri es to create a ' functional' arc hitecture that, re gardless o f the sp iritual ne eds o f th e ind iv i d ua l, has re sulted in works which cannot m eet o ur aspi rat ions , which are always beyond of materi a l nee ds . ( ...) T her e is a ' functional scholarship ' as dead , as academics and as dangerous as the academic school . We hav e an exam ple of it i n the German S ie dlu ng . T hese sp ir it u a l ly m is e r ab le c onstructions are another example ( ...) the dange r of misinterpreted theo rie s and that never the great works have been d o ne on ly b y theories. ( ...) I nstead of these, the s p ir it of c reation and things Sara C oscarelli , The GATC PAC as the Barcelo na’s Mediterre anean critic al Regionalis m bac kground 116 done without prej udi ce , copied the elements that no w we can c all ' decoration ma c hin is t ' : pipe railings , windo ws cabin , lifesavers , e tc . ( ...) . In the second part of the con feren ce Ser t reflec ts on how to resolve the future of architecture in Ca ta lo n ia : We mu st d efend a c limate arch itecture, a Mediterranean architecture made for intense s u n, a clear atmosphere and fr ie nd ly landscape . ( ...) If we analyze the works done in the Me diterranean lands, creat ions of spir its from different per iods , we see that are l inked by a recurring characterist ics thousands of years apart and found i n all the coasts o f th is sea . An d fin a l ly , the third part defen se and enhances the progre ssive a nd emancipatory resource s brought by the Moder n Movement : ( ...) Wonderfu l work s have been done, new ways have been identified and new bases of urbanism have been established. ( ...) T here is a new living and of our time archite cture , ( ...) vibrant and youthful. ( ...) Works that fit the n eed of a new soci a l structure that satisfies our spiritua l and material desires. We can , for this, use a ll the means at hand , from t he most traditiona l to the most modern ; from sto n e to brick and reinf orced concre te , s te e l and glass , provided they are co ntrolled by a spirit of orde r , clarity and respec t for the ancient c o nstants , s pir itu a l frame work o f a ll majo r architectural cr eations (Sert (a) , 193 4, pag. 43 - 44). The following year th e group pub lished in AC the d efense of the s upremacy of the modern Me diterranean architecture in regard to the Central E uropean : Mode rn architecture , te chnically , is lar g e ly a discover y of the Nordi c countries, but sp iritually is Mediterranean arc hitecture without style tha t influence t his n ew arc hitecture . Mo dern ar chitecture is a re turn to pure , traditiona l forms , of the Mediterranean. It's a victory of the Latin sea! (GATCPAC ( a) , 1935, p ag. 33). Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 117 From Ratio nalis m to Regio nalis m In this cont ext , the approach to the vernacular themes i n the Weekend H ouses at the Garraf (193 4 - 1935) by Sert a nd To rres Clave acquire a clear Mediterranean ident ity with particu lar attention to ly r ic a l and spiritual factors negated by the Ge rman funct ionalism . W h i le s im i l ar it ie s c an be drawn re garding the Detachable House (1932) , bu ilt on ly thre e years e arlier, mor ph o lo g ic a l ly the Garraf homes are opposed based on th e ir r e lat ion s h ip with the environment : in the Detac hable H ous e co ntact with the natural environment is e stabl ished through a proc ess of double abstr act ion , while the ho uses at Garraf t r ie s to ma in ta in a re lationship with the contex t through the inclusion of regional materials . T his simila rity - oppos ition relationship is remarkab le, especially in one of the element s comm on to both houses : the terraces . Wh ile it was intended an optimization of the d istribution spaces trying to offer a minimu m of habitability to a max imum of functi ons, terrace s , in both projec ts, are born l ike a contradiction , j u st ify i ng it se lf as transit ion elements betwe en the o utside and int e r io r . In the case of the Weekend H ouses this co ntradiction is acce ntuated. The y exceed the e xc lu s ive ly funct ionalist conc epts and takes a leading role: " I t will be for many, us eless and not functional , but the se factors , lyr ic a l ly and sp ir it u a l ly , are of p rimary impo rtance” (GA TCPAC ( b), 1935, pag. 36). In connec tion with thi s fact, appe ars the c reation of a new language : Se rt and Torre s Clave men t ion the " lyr ic a l " and "spiritua lity" co ncepts to justify a pro jec t option and move away from the thought and the te chnical l an guage that they had express ed in the Detachable Ho u se . It can be glimpsed , t herefore, t he influence of the traditiona l Mediterranean build ing , such as th e Catalan vault used in the house T yp e C or the furniture that moves away from the industr ial veneration and it's adorne d wi th all c las s of cerami cs, wic k e r or craft cha irs . In the article that Ares writes about th ese h ome s , he detects a vio la t io n o f th e new constant se t s by the CI AM congre sses : " Standardization seemed replaced by craftsmanship ; u niv er s a l is m by lo c a lis m ; rationa lity by tradition ; and economi cs by th e lo g ica l was te of local r esources against industrial product optimization ” (A res, 1996 , pag . 124) . Sara C oscarelli , The GATC PAC as the Barcelo na’s Mediterre anean critic al Regionalis m bac kground 118 The refer ence to loc al t r ad it io n becomes , therefore, an ope n criticism to the dogmatic aspects of mode rnity. Indeed , on Chri s tmas 1934, th e He re and The r e magazine published an artic le by Sert c a lle d " Architecture w ithout ` st y le ' and ` architect' " , in w h ic h he insists on various aspec ts already s tat ed from the f irs t issu e of AC of the constants of popular or tradit ional Mediterranean architecture , and adds a strong critic ism of the " architec ts and theorists , es pe c ia l ly Germans , who want to take the functionalist tests t o th e absurd” (Se rt (b), 1934, pag. 33) . Moreov er, i n this same i ssue, Sert speaks abo u t architecture and highlights the changes taking p lace in a commentary ded icated to some works of Le C orbusier : Mode rn architecture can us e all t h e mate rials . The architect sho uld n ot imp ose him se lf narro w limits . He c an conti nue using traditiona l materials such as ston e, n ext t o reinf orced concrete forms. Alternate flat and curve d surfaces . It is the mo dern spirit , that it is t he wo rk . An open s pirit and in constant cre ation " (Ser t (b) , 1934, pa g. 34 ). That is materiali ze by the Swiss in h is w o rk s , f le e in g m e c ha nis t ic Ce ntral European tre nds and tending towards a more lyr ic a l c o n ce p t , and at the same tim e wo r sh ip ing what is vernacu lar . The case of the Maison de week - end (1935) La Celle ( France ) is k ey , as eviden ced in i t s a ff in i t ie s with the Weeken d Ho us es ( 1934 - 1935); not only in terms of forma l resol ution and the use of local materials , but e special ly for the use of the Catalan vault , resu lt of the interact ion among members of GA T CPA C and Le Corbusier (Pizza , Ro vira, 2006, pag . 7 9). The ro ad that GATCPAC will trave l in it s few years o f life wil l be mo st enriching: from t he h is to r ic a l pe r iod in wh ic h the mo vement begins to modernize the appearance o f Le Corbusier as a n ind isputable guid ing figure ; and fro m the in tune reclaim w it h the inter national movemen t up to the creative search of a n autonomous way to joi n th is " refe rential cosmol ogy " (Pizza , Are s, 2006, pag. 106) . Th e h is to r ic a l , artistic, topographic and c limatic roots are too stro ng to l et them be carried away by the radical Ger man central ism . For GATCPAC but also for the m un ic ipa lit ie s a nd region s that it re presents , the link wi th the " s it e" is such that it is imp o s s ib le to g ive u p it s perso nality. Thus, t h e l in k w it h the Mediterranean is th e common denomi nator that begin s to develop i n these Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 119 areas. The ir strength of it s id e nt it y w ill prevent that the internationalist architectural des ign and strongly forma lism of the North ro ots. And so the group pr o cla ime d the year of its d ec o m mis s io n in g : " The builders of this arch itecture , always show a great pre dile ction for pure forms and vo lume s c le ar ly stressed . ( ...) There has alwa ys been a n architecture outsi de these s ty le s [ classic], an architecture ' witho ut st yle ' ( ...) and generally w ithout an architect a nd without a bluepr int. T he se Mediterranean bu ildings from a ll eras , pure ly ut ilitarian , most of the times of a magnificent s imp l ic it y and a dign ity th at we wou ld like to see la v ish e d in today's big cities ( ...) Ev e rythi ng in them is natural, everyth ing has been i nvented to serv e man ; all its elements have the right size , hu man measure. ( ...) The elem ents of the se buildings, up to its s mallest details, are mass produc tion , which ha ve been refi ned and perfected over th e centuries : do ors wit h precise height and width , windows , cupboards , furniture, ceramics. F orms, always the same with slight variat ions , whi c h are repeate d throughout the Me diterranean c oast. The facades at noo n, are protec ted from too much sun , by tre llises or porche s, elements that screen l i ght without depriving the v iew of the outside scenery. The roof s are flat, terrace d , or o f Moorish tiles and always ve ry gentl e slope ; so that the prism that supports them dominates the whol e, retaining all its strength and puri ty . ( ...) T he interesting and v ita l in this M editerrane an architecture, is what the s choo ls of architecture does not seek to perpetuate and constitute its basis : primary vol ume s , large smoo th surfa ce s, clear and bright po lychr ome, matc hing cons tructions with the dominant lines of th e landscape in w h ic h th e y are located and wh ich requires creating ne w forms for eac h locatio n , to invent new solutions. It can't interest us the r e gional architecture of limited use . What interests us is an architecture based on existi ng elemen ts , an architecture for a climate , a light and a given landscape (GATCP AC (b) , 1935 , pag. 31) . Conc ha Die z - Pastor, A CRITICAL APPROACH TO MO DERNIST ARCHITECTURE IN SP A IN . Rumo urs and Truths 126 Figure 1. From t op to bottom , Fe rn ánd ez - S haw ’s Po rt o Pi Petro l Station (Madr i d); Ber gamí n & Blanco Soler ’s Ma rqu is of Villor a’s H ouse (Madrid); and Gar cía M erca dal ’s ‘ Goya ’s Corn er ’ (Zaragoza ). (Photogra ph s of public domain. T his vi ew, by the author. ) T he G25 architects graduate d from the School of Madrid between 1918 and 1924, when Europe had change d forever due to the horrendous Great W ar. Spain’s clash o f 1898 seemed to o far from their time, they no longer identified with the Unamunan tragedy they had been raised in t o . They w ere consci ous of their time and place as their master Torres Balbás (1918) had taught them to do . T hei r free rev o lt of the a rchi te ctural p anorama, start ing in 1925 Madr id only came as the natural r e s ult . St ill, theirs was no conscious as semblage nor established on purpo se under any manifes to. It was rathe r a matter of tacit agreement to a set of p r in c ip le s ( D iez - Pasto r, 2005, p p . 35 - 39). S ome of the se architects were unfairly termed folklo rists (F lores , 1961, pp. 169 - 172) , an idea later soft ened (Flore s, 1965, p. 24). Othe r the orists (Bo higas, 1970, pp. 13 2 - 134) maintained tha t the G25’s att itude was inev itably entangled to the i r progress ive attitude which par adoxica lly resisted to fo rget tradi tion, ratifying t h is Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Fe bru ary 1 9 - 21, 20 15 127 idea i n years to co me (Boh igas, 1998) as t he G25 had always defended ( Zavala, 1945). The f irst G25 works appeare d i n 1927, soon becomi ng th e m ileston es of a n ew archi tecture for the new times be i ng - B ergamín & Blanc o Soler’s Marquis of Villora Ho use (Madrid) , Fernández - Shaw’s Porto Pi Petro l Statio n (M adrid) and García Mercada l’s ‘ Goya’s Co rner ’ (Zarago za). The same year Carlos Arniches had been appointed Arc hitect Di rector by the Junta de A mpli ac ión de Estudios 6 and won with Martín Domínguez, h is wo rking partner, the natio nal com petition for the Albe rgues de carretera 7 C hanges , howev er, h ad starte d earlier , on tho se architects ’ vis it to the Exposition I nternational e des Arts Décoratifs of Paris in 1925 – after which the group were name d (Diez - Pastor, 200 5, p.47) . The i mpact of t he even t made them reflect about the ne w architecture and emerging figures, the attendances and absences, their ideas and those of their elders . Criticism took an unprecede nted shape, jumping f rom the cafés to the med ia . (Di ez - Past or, 2010 a). Architecture as a hu man product o ught to re flect its autho rs’ co ncerns and princip les (M umfo rd, 1941). The G 25 were not so much attracte d by Le Corbusier as b y Tony Garn ier and Augu ste Perre t; they commente d on the reasons for the German mi sp lacement, t he deceiving Austria n pavilion where Peter Behre ns had been invi ted to part icipate; they enjoyed the Czec h pavi lio n , and had a fine surprise with Mallet - Steven s’ – that is, they sp oke the ir minds freely. The ir interest was to e xplore whate ver see med i nte resting, rather than subscribe any particular movement. They did not care for names or mani fe stos as much as deed s. P aris prov ided the G25 wi th the gunpowder to ignite thei r creativity and ideas o f change (Diez - Pas tor, 2005 , pp.41 - 55) . As a resul t a brand ne w focus appeared , modern and reflective about the soc ial changes and ne eds, i n line with Europe an curre nts though critica lly adapted ( Die z - Pasto r, 2005, p. 33 ). M aterializat ion was s till the toughest part, all the more when referred to the domestic sphere , si nce the r easons for th e 6 Fr om now on, the J A E, the Board of Furth er Study an d Scientif ic Resea rch to whic h institu tions like th e Ins tituto Esc uela, th e Rockef eller In stitute an d the Res idencia de E studi antes belon ged. 7 High way Inns, bu i lt between 1928 and 1930. Conc ha Die z - Pastor, A CRITICAL APPROACH TO MO DERNIST ARCHITECTURE IN SP A IN . Rumo urs and Truths 128 transformat ions that had metamo r p ho sed E urope in the blin k of an eye had escape d Spain due to its Wo rld War I neutrality . Hav ing d u ly fo llowed the Europ ean confl ict, h owever the neutral rigidness ( Fue ntes Codera, 2014) had ide o lo g ica lly po la r iz e d t he Spanish society , e it h er p ro v id in g a way to cr itical progress or a means o f affirmat ion of the nationalist sp ir it (Fuentes C odera, 2014 ). As Una muno (1976) st ated in 1916 , ‘ in rigo ur, there are no neutrals . We are all at war ’. That is , the Great War reope ned the o ld 1898 wounds while Sp a in stayed aside from t he benefi c ia l changes internationally exp erienced. T hese were f irs t witnessed in Pa r is by t he G25 , who thought them necessary to improve Spanish life , no matter if diff icult to apply. Ba c k in Madr id, articles started to appear contradict in g th e ir s en io r s. Cr it ic is m , held in the af ternoo n gatherings o f the café s as us ual in M adrid , reache d its peak while to everybody’s amazement it had j umped into the written me dia. Not jus t the spec ialized press , – main ly La Co nstru cción M oderna and Arquite ctura – but als o pu b l ica t io ns l ike La Gaceta Literaria or La Esfera , and the n ews papers, from El Sol to El Debate , race d to publish the a rchitects ’ o p in io ns an d works . Garc ía Merc adal’s example with h is c hr o n ic le s on Euro pean architecture fo r Arquitec tura started to be fol lowed by other col leag ues (García Merc adal, 1 926) 8 who w ou ld soon try to follow his frenetic act ivity. Figure 2. C ent ral P owe r St at ion , C iuda d Un ive rs itar ia (Madrid), 1932. L u is Lacasa an d Manue l Sánc hez Ar cas. (Photo graph by the aut h or.) 8 Repor t of his s tay at th e A cade my of Spain in Rome (1923 - 1926). Written in 1926, it wa s firs t publish ed i n 1998. Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Fe bru ary 1 9 - 21, 20 15 129 Cr it ic ism gave thes e men the power to ex plain their society the novel ties , an d transformat ions required. People their age soo n engaged into the ir discours e. They soon reckon ed that houses o ught to evo lve and seek co mfort through a better distribution an d the inclus ion of new facilities and materials that wou ld help them be well heate d in the winter. Health, then a main co ncern, starte d to ma ke its e lf v is ib le in t he G25 wo rks, with shelters to prote ct from the sun whil e re min d in g of the need t o be outd oors; ne w mechan is ms fo r doors and windows al lo w in g for better ventilation; or new soundpro ofing materials that e ased community life. Still the most difficu lt part dealt with the deep social transform ations required . Whil e Europe h ad witnessed t he loss of their young and product ive men, s ending their women to work , dras tica lly reducing the fam ily size and supre ssing domestic service, Spanish middle class was stil l constituted by well - established families with no less than four o r five childre n and at least three people to servi ce them . Hou ses w ere ful l of bed rooms and large living and kitchen areas, which soon became the G25 target. Social conce rn remai ne d synonym to charity work. M aking themselves visible repres ented for the G25 a chance to educ ate th e whol e societ y on the need for thos e chang es, yet a ls o a c hallenge. Suc h was, for instance, Arniches and Domínguez’s interest with their weekly column in El Sol (Di ez - Pastor, 2005 , p p.6 1), where th ey discussed i ssues from ‘ Ki tchens’ to ‘Built ensemb les’ – all of th em starting new interests in thei r legions of readers (Diez - Pasto r, 2005, p .63). Other colleag ues soon followed. The a v an t - gar de as a vis ion of t he w orld The pre stige of t he G25 grew as the ir spee ch revealed co nsistent with their works . By 1935 hardly any reade r of the daily press ignored who they we re. Betwe en 1925 and 1936 t he y part icipate d in the most re levant works then Conc ha Die z - Pastor, A CRITICAL APPROACH TO MO DERNIST ARCHITECTURE IN SP A IN . Rumo urs and Truths 130 started in Madrid 9 , from collect ive works like the Ciudad Unive rsitaria or the J AE campus to national competitions in d iv id u a l ly a ttende d – li ke the new airport and raceco urse in M ad r id – or relevant pr ivate com miss io ns 10 . Figure 3. A pa rt men t B u ild in g i n Men én dez P el ayo (Madri d), 1928. Cas t o Fernández - Shaw . (Photo g ra ph by the auth or .) 9 In Madrid’s Ciudad Universi taria (1 927 - 1943), Luis Lacasa and M anuel Sánche z Arcas were comm issi oned with the C linic Hosp ital (1928) a nd Cen tral P ower Sta tion (193 2); Migue l de los San tos the Faculty of Sciences (1928) and Fa culty of M edicin e (192 8); Rafael Bergamí n and Luis Bla nc o Soler th e Sports Fie lds and Residence H all Jaime del Amo (192 9); and Agu stín Aguirr e the Fac ulty of P hilosoph y (1928). T he new campu s for researc h and educ ation, the JAE appointed Car los Arn iches as its architec t in 1927, whom w ith his wor king pa rtne r Martín D omíngu ez won the Albergues de Carretera [Highway Inns] c ompetition . Meanwhile , Fernando Garcí a Mercadal an d Mar tín Domíng uez collabor ated at S ecun dino Zu azo’s off ice in Ma drid and C asto Ferná ndez - Sha w won t he Baraj as Airport co mpetiti on (1929). Most G2 5 arch itects wer e private ly activ e while th ey con tinu ed their pu blic act ivity atta ch ed to th e Ciud ad Un iversita ria, or to n ew public developm ents. Like Agu irre, in ch arge of the Faculty of Law ; De los Sa ntos with the School of Dentis try ; or Lacasa and Sá nc hez Arca s, wit h the Residenc e Hall for Teac hers and Rec torate buildin gs. 10 Lik e Figu eroa, w hose wor ks inc lude d sever al apartm ent buildin gs and the A partment B uilding in José Abascal ; B ergam ín & Blan co Soler, who au thored ‘El V iso’ hou sing esta te ; García Mercad al, wh o did Villa A mparo (Majorca), Díaz - Ca nej a’s H ous e , and wo n the Museum o f Mo de rn Art ; De l os Santos, wh o b uilt an Apartm ent B uilding in Alfon so XI ; Zavala, resp onsibl e for some apartme nt buildings by Ma drid’s Parqu e del Oeste; or F ernánde z - Shaw, a ut hor of a n Apartmen t Bu ilding in Menén dez Pelayo ,. L acasa & Sánchez Arcas bui lt t he Hos pita l of Toled o , and Sá nchez Arcas the Algeci ras Market , wh ile Ar nic hes & Domíngu ez w on the competi tion f or the n ew La Zarzuela Racec our se . Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Fe bru ary 1 9 - 21, 20 15 131 Notwithstanding the numb er or rel evance of t he works com missi oned , it was the new architectura l concept and principles o ver which it stood that o perated the transformat ion, i ntrod ucing Modernism in Spain. S hort ly , m ost of the buildings had beco me m il estones of Spain’s arch itecture , even prai se d abroad . They repres ented a whol e new architectural conce pt built with new means, mate rials and technique s, often experimental , support ing the new panorama (Diez - Pas tor, 20 05) . The use of rei nforced con cre te ge neralized among t he se architects who often sought the civil e ngineers ’ o p in io n to refra in their c a lc u la t io ns eve n if not required ( Diez - Pas tor, 2003, p p. 317 - 370 ) . Som e building compan ies 11 Yet t he G25 mos t genui ne contribution materialize d in the ir new concept o f architectural space which dete rmined th eir buildings . A mong the ir stro ngest influences were A do lf Loos’ i dea of spac e, the Raumplan , described by h im as interconnecte d continued spaces in a way that the changes were functi ona l though unnoticeable . Lik e Loos’ , the G25’s arc hitecture was not c onceived through drawings b ut rather through space s. T he se conc epts ev olved from Schmarsow’ s theory of dynamic spac e , w it h geo metrical abstr action and ‘the mode rnist preoccupation with shaping internal space to ad dre ss functio nal needs’ ( Schwarze r, 1991, p. 57 ) as clear outcomes . As a result, their planning started from inside advancing outwards, pro ducing interesting assamblages of vol umes nev er seen b efore. Th e proc ess, st ill, di d not end o utside the buil d ing in its façades , but rather went o n towards the e nvironment and into the landscape (Di ez - Pastor, 2008), producing a ser ies of transitions a imed at integrat ing architecture w ith its context – be it natural or built, rural or u rban, visitable or habitable. It was an a rchitecture in the line Mumford ( 1924) proposed, ‘ based on in charge of the wo rks unexpectedly op enmi nded were keen to accept new techniques, materials and means, even aqui r ing pattents abroad (Diez - Pa stor , 2010 b , p. 3 63 ) . The effor t done by all the part ies invo lved was coo rdinate d and agreed, offe ring an unprecedented chance to develop a new architecture. Such a unique oportunity to unleash cr eativity, so long restrained , spurred the group’s working capacity . 11 AGROMÁN, whose fou nder accept ed any suggest ions of patents o n new material s and tech niques to a cquire, was on e of those compa nies. Conc ha Die z - Pastor, A CRITICAL APPROACH TO MO DERNIST ARCHITECTURE IN SP A IN . Rumo urs and Truths 132 th e perce ption of “place”’ ( Lefa ivre & Tz onis, 2 003, p. 19). How ever , even though it was high ly critica l with any pr inciples o f mode rnity as vo iced by the different curre nts, it cannot be termed ‘regionalist’ (Diez - Past or, 2012, p .59 ) strictly spe aking. In f act , any reg ional e lement or te chnique the y used – from arches to brick wal ls – was imme diately g iven a who lly new tur n – funct ional and symbol ic . Far from t he fol klori st ma nners of th eir el ders or a p oor sense of regionalism, the G25 architects we re self - critica l and ref lexive. Le Co rbusier, Gropius and all the leading lights of Modernism who visited and lectured in Madrid those years were e nthusiastic about them (D iez - Pastor, 2012, p.259) . R enunciation to their culture, time and p lace , or the he ritage rec eived was not an option for t hese men unless the process happened to suggest the opposite – in wh i ch case th ey took the challenge. Servility to Mode rnist principles was neither a choice for architects who, if anything, rej ected to classify their works or be classified, and in the best of case s defined their style as reasonable architecture (Diez - Pas tor, 2005 , p .33). Only L uis Gut iérre z S oto , a younger colleague to the G25, surrende red to lead ing trends adopt ing anyone l ik e ly t o become p opul ar r e j e ctin g c r it ic is m ( Ba ldel lou, 1973 , p. 14 ) 12 T he G25 , instead , be nefited from a so ciety surre ndered to the ir tal e nt and the ir architecture. Pro v id in g the ir pedagogica l d epl oyment to e xp la in M ode rnism’s benefits to a general audience , peopl e wo uld natura lly be ea ger to adopt a Mode rnist way life, free fro m constraints and future oriented. As Octavio Paz described it, ‘ … the a vant - garde was not just an aes thetics and a language; it was an erotic , a poli tics, a visio n of the world, an actio n: a li festyle’ . 13 (1987: 148). However , demand was still too moderate for the urgency with which most of these young architec ts had expec ted the changes to c ome. 12 Th e f act tha t he had gra duated with th e best grades seem ed i n th e eyes of t he f o llowing genera tions enough rea son to award h im with a suppos ed membersh ip o f the n oblest genera t ion of ar chitects in the h istory of S pain sin ce the tim es of Juan de V illanuev a . 13 ‘…la va ng uard ia no fue ú n ica ment e una est é ti ca y un le ngua je; fue una er ót ica , una p ol íti ca, una visión del mun do, un a acc ión: en es tilo de vida’, in Octa vio Paz ’s origina l text. Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Fe bru ary 1 9 - 21, 20 15 133 Rumo ur has it … The Francoist regime de clared Mode rnist architecture as degenerate while they used it as the foundations for their re gressive infra - sty le based upon the rawes t folklore and re ligion (Z avala, 1945 , p. 15 8 ) , termed by Torre s Balbás ( 1918b : p.176 ) ‘nat ional -t raditionalism’ – inc lud in g the then e merging ‘Spanish style’ based o n t he sa me pr inc ip le s - , or ‘ nation al - exa lta t io n s t y le ’ (Di ez - Pasto r, 2012, p. 2 60 ). I s first signs t had shily appeared befo re the Civil War aro und Pedro Muguruza and h is circ le, though had bee n clear ly despised by the M odernists . Muguruza , appointed Gene ral Di rector o f Architecture fr om 1939 by the Francoist regime, in s tit u t ionalize d the architectura l madness and re sentment against those who had ignore d h im for so l ong 14 . He es tablished the guidelines of the new s tyle and architectural censors hip meant to rule unti l the end of the Francoist tyranny 15 Very c onve niently, the G25 was unifor med by the dictatorship into what they called ‘ M adrilean Rati onalism ’, – meaning the irs was ‘degene rate ar t’ – unifying architects who had re jec ted any preset rules o ther than those of logic, who did not fit under any labe ls or uniforms (Z ava la, 1945, pp.158 - 159). T he G25 members pres eved their own personality and character, trac eable throughout their work. To classify them under the R ationalist label - wh ich t hey seld om followed as unders tood worldwide – i s li ttle descript ive, if not unfair (Diez - Pasto r, 2005, pp.3 3 - 39) . Perhaps for th is reaso n, when interv iewed by Garc ía Merc adal (1928) on their architecture, Lacasa s ai d his was l ogical while Arni ches and Domínguez def ined theirs as reasonable using a much more moderate tone than Blanco So ler’s (M erca dal, 1928, p.4) . While Sánc hez Arcas and Lacasa were members of the Com munist Party, and Bergamín and Blanco Soler open communist sy mpa thizers, F igueroa and Zavala supported Falange. T h e ir . 14 Pedro M uguruza ( 1893 - 1952) ha d graduated as a n arch i tect in 1916 w ith the h ighest grades, yet wa s never considered a good architec t – in th e line w ith the S panish h istoric traditi on in th is respe ct. I t is worth remember ing that M ugur uz a is the au thor of th e most impor tant F rancois t monum ent , the Valle de los C a í do s Mo nume nt . He also o rganized t he Architects Purge Pro cess afte r which all those arc hitects w ho had held public posts or even h ad work ed for th e admin istrat ion were s everely fin ed and lost th eir righ ts to work as arc hitects, thus f orced the m to un derground wor k or ex i le. 15 Mu guruza c oun ted on Luis Gu tiérrez Soto an d Pedro B idagor – a second line archi tect who had lived on his dra ughtma nship at S ecundin o Zuaz o’s office u ntil the W ar – to defin e the ‘n ew style’, ch oosin g two y ounger architec ts as if to c onfer s ome validi ty an d reliability to the r ules. Conc ha Die z - Pastor, A CRITICAL APPROACH TO MO DERNIST ARCHITECTURE IN SP A IN . Rumo urs and Truths 134 affiliations sho wed in their adopt ion of more o r less radical stance s in t h e ir practice , like S ánchez Arc as ’ and Lacasa ’ s pr o xim it y to the ideas scientific rationalism expressed by ABC , and th e ir drift parallel to Hannes Meyer’s (Diez - Pasto r, 2005, pp.36 - 37) – as made evident in Lacasa’s contribution to the Spanish Pavillion in P aris Inte rnat iona l Expo , in 1937. Rationa lism could hardly apply to such an heterogeneous group. Still , it helped to depict the m as Mode rnist architect s c o nv en ie n t ly a vo id in g ra s h id e o lo g ic a l ex p la n at io ns . Figure 4. La Za rz u ela Ra cecou rse (Madrid), 1934. Ca rl os Arniche s and Ma rtín Domínguez. ( Phot og raph from A GA, u se entitled to the author.) Later depictions e arned the G25 be called folkloris ts (F lores, 1965, p. 24) due to their oppos ition to bre ak with history and their c u lt ur e . I nstead the y believe d that Mode rnism ought to adapt to the c ircumstance s (Mumfo rd, 1924) w h ic h to other s re spond ed to a progressive at titude that refused to reje ct tradition , ‘perhaps ge nerating the mo st refined and progres sive im age of republican Madrid’ ( Bohigas, 197 0, p. 132). Their social conc ern was share d by the younger GAT CPAC members, the Catalonian sect ion of the GATEPAC 16 16 Th ere were sever al groups within the GATEPAC were Cen tre – based in Ma drid - , North – inc ludin g San Seba stian and Bilba o – and East – base d in Barcelo na. The East gr oup, or GATC PAC, clearly outnu mbered the r est, fed with th e youn g studen ts of the B arcelon a School of Arc hitectur e. , the Spanish branc h of CI RPA C founded by Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Fe bru ary 1 9 - 21, 20 15 135 García Mercadal and Zavala in 1930 as a result of CIA M 17 Among the po st - war group of re sented, architects, e ngineers and c ompa n ie s alike sought a chance t o coll ect thei r debt . Though p raise d by all their collaborators as much for the ir techn ical as the ir artistic ta lent ( Z avala, 1 945), the fact that the G25 be no w out of the way , purge d (Uch a, 1980, p.182 ; Zavala, 194 5, p.158 ) . Co nstituted by Sert, I llescas and othe r young Catalonian architects it also defended the need to build a better world. Ev en so , both the G25 and the GATCPAC approac hed it from different M odernist interpretat ions. While the G25 were pioneers of M odernism in Spain, the GA TCPAC affirmed Spanish Mode rnism. The main differe nce was the ir relation to CIAM . Until 1936 all Spanish represe ntatives at the CIAM had been G25 mem be rs. While the y practiced Mode rnism o f their own cr iteria, the GATCPAC de fended an ortho dox Mode rnism , s a lav ish ( D ie z - Pasto r, 2012, p. 259) o f the CIAM principles, sho wing great respe ct to so me of the G25 architec ts – i .e., Carlos A rniche s (S ert et al ., 1933). F rancoism dismissed the ir re ceptivity to fo re ign architectural ideas as ‘ the most dege nerate of all degene rate art’ ( Diez - Pastor , 2012, p . 259) . 18 A relevan t example was M adrid’s new La Zarzuela Raceco ur se , wh ose compet ition had wo n Carlos Arniches and Martín D omínguez in 1934, calling on Eduardo To rroja as technica l adviser. As is now known, Félix Candela’ s , left a huge void for the resent ed to j u mp to the fi rs t line of prac tice ( D ie z - Pasto r, 2005 ) . Henc e the ir chan ce to tell tales about the pas t, once t hat the fo rmer fi rs t line had died or exiled, or had be en de activated (Ucha, 198 0) . 19 17 The Con grès Intern ationau x d’A rchitectur e Moderne (CIAM ), a nd the Comité In ternati onal pou r la Réa lisation des Probl èmes de l’A rchitectu re Con tempora ine (CIRPAC) . coope ration was d eci ss iv e to the ev olution of the proj ect so lv in g the key 18 Th e post - war Purge of the Ar chitects was anoth er of Mu guruz a´s deeds, wh o co nceived it in way in w hich arc hitects ou ght to denou nce an d accus e their collea gues in order t o be able to c ontin ue into pr actice. By way of two exam ples, Ma nuel S á nc hez Arcas was sen tenced to a fin e comprisin g more th an all h e had, a nd ban ned to c ontinu e into pra ctice eith er in th e public or pr ivate sec tor. His w as the highest of a ll G25 purges , though n one of them escaped to be f ined in th e best of cases. 19 Félix C andela (1910 - 19 97) gradu ated from Madrid S chool of Arch itecture in 19 35. He had a leading t echnical pr ofile as an expert in t he latest r ein forced concr et e techn iques and h ad been Lectu rer at th e Mate ria l Resista nc e Ch air still bein g a studen t. Th e long time req uired to ob tain h is diploma s i gned by t he Pr esident of the Repu blic – more tha n one year – made it im possible for h im to obta in it befor e the ou tbreak of the C ivil War in 19 36, w hen he w as forced to f lee Spain . He exiled in M exico where h e studied the degr ee again d ue to the im possi bility t o produc e any demon strativ e docume nt of h is profe ssion . George Epolito, MEDITERRANEITÀ O LTREMARE: Assimilatio n, Appro priatio n, or Rejectio n? The Impo sition of the Fa scist Aesthetic Ideology of Medite rranea n - ness Ove rseas fro m 19 35 to 1940 142 to show ho w an overarching strate gy of m editerrane ità (Mediterranean - n ess) was implemented in both realised and desired coloni es . North and Eas t Africa exempl ify the f ormer , while parts of South America represe nt the latter . Generally spe aking, t he terms “ita lianità (I talian - ness), m edite rraneità (Mediterranean - ness) , (romanità) (R o man - ness ), and latinità (Latin - ness) were vie w ed as interchangeable too ls of prop aganda by Ita lian fasc ist ideologues . Employing any of these terms often de pended on the context in which the fasci st promoters we re trying to pro ve or j us t ify t h e ir ac t io n s to Ita lians, other po werful nations, or indigeno us peoples in both her realised and desired colon ies . Part of the politica l rhetor ic argued that Italy had the r ight to (re)c onquer former lands of th e Roma n Empire s uch as No rth Africa. In this case, t here was a log ic , however misguided it was . Whe n applied to East Africa and South Ame rica , 1 Fascists had to adapt the ir overall strategy in order to transform the desire d int o the realised . In the case of desire d, a soft, veiled rhetoric was employed, appearing on the surface to be more gent ile. In re ality they were simply being passive - aggressive, hiding the true ma levolence o f fascism. In the case of realise d colonies, the s trategy was to utilise a harder, mor e direct rhetoric accompanied by inhume actions. howev er, the l ogic became i ncreasi ng l y convol uted. 2 Po le m ic a l quest ions in both the desired an d realise d col onies arose: How wo u ld people in the coloni es, particular ly those who did not f it in to the ethnic and racial categorisat ions of a c ommo n Ro man ancestry, re c e ive the co nstant ons laught of fasci sts’ propagandis ing of Italian superiority, particu larly in architecture and aesthetics? W o u ld t he d isp lac e me n t of Italian cu ltural ca pital needed to imp le me n t s a id superior ity have to be fus ed with loc a l is m s , r es u lt in g in hy br id is ed products in order to mitigate sa id c o lo n is e d peo ples? If so , wo u ld acknowledgement of s aid lo c a lis m s be deemed a s ign of weaknes s by fasci st 1 More s pecifica l ly, th e desired col onies, to whic h I am refer ring, are A rgentin a, Uruguay, an d (sou thern ) B razil. 2 Wh en analy sing th e terms of mediterranei tà and itali anità in relati on to the ar ts and a rchitec ture produ ced durin g the fa scist peri od, it is eas y to overl ook the br utality of the r egime’s ac tions by merely focu sin g on a esthetic qu alities. inflic ted on said peo ples. I t is importa nt to remem ber tha t the terms had a very dark side. Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 143 id eo log ues? Afte r all, how c ou ld any other culture produce anythi ng c omparable to the grandness of Roman - ness? Italy certainl y has a co lonial past, albei t one that is often de scribed as rimos so (“represse d” or “displaced”) …. Mia Fulle r Time Fr ames In her book , Modern’s Abro ad, Mia F u l le r ( 2007: 88) outlines three s p ec if ic t im e frames in re gards to Fascism and its re lations hip to the arts and architecture: 1) early 1920s in to the e arly 1930s; 2) E arly 1930s to 1936; 3) 1936 to the e arly 1940s. The fi rst per iod was c haracterised by the em ergence of R azionalismo, Futurism o , and Novecent o mov em ents. Each of these mo vemen ts was competing to be des ignated as the of f ic ia l aesthe tic of the fasci st state, wh ile als o arguing to be the most appropriate to moder nis e and u nif y the c ultural national identity of Italy. 3 T his essay is focussed roughl y on the la s t period, more pr e c ise ly from 1935 - 1940, The second time frame was defi ned by the fascist state in c re a sin g its f inancial comm itment to commi ssions. Plu ra lis t ic approac hes to design continued, as did debates bo th home and abroad over the appropriate dir e ct io n to take aesthetically. The third period was charac terized by a tightening of aesthetic express ion both ho me and abroad and increas ed inhumane and authoritarian po l ic ie s . 4 This imperial ex pansionism of Italian culture, which, like a r iv er that never sta gn ates b ut is fed by oth er ri vers , g ives a nd tak es un iv ersa lly assi m ilat es a nd is assimilate d, is a spiritual attitude c haracteristic of fascis m and its ever intensify in g revival of th e universal and imperial ancie nt tradition. Margherita Sarfatti but f irs t so me key facts are outline d to conte xtualize the events of this later period. 3 Prev iously, th ese debates were domina ted by those pr omotin g medieval rev ivalisms, Neocla ssic ism, and the Liberty Style (k nown mor e commonly outside of Italy a s Arte Nou veau ). 4 A s 19 35 is a pivota l yea r, I w ish to inclu de this in the main body of tex t, not mer ely as a point of referen ce. George Epolito, MEDITERRANEITÀ O LTREMARE: Assimilatio n, Appro priatio n, or Rejectio n? The Impo sition of the Fa scist Aesthetic Ideology of Medite rranea n - ness Ove rseas fro m 19 35 to 1940 144 Early 1920s – mid 1930s - Italy and H er Realis ed C olon ies in Afr ica Part of the harder, more direct rheto ric employed by fascists in the 1920s was aimed at Italians, te lling them to sacrifice immed iate material gain for the promise of reaping the rewards of a soon - to - be - realised global fasc ist Empire. For so me Itali ans, th is meant transferr ing to lands whi c h once fe ll under the jurisdict ion of the Roman Empi re and be yond in order to incul cate the local primitive peoples w ith a superior se nse of Roman - ne s s . F ulf i lm e nt o f t his important miss ion, Italians were led to be lie ve, would help to bring pro sperity to all of Ita ly. In orde r to realise a g lobal fasc ist Empire, aes thetics and arch itecture were often linked directly to Roman - ness . Populating the realised co lonies with Italian stock meant the transfere nce of their cultural capital wo uld serve to civilise the natives whilst prov ing to ot her Euro pean colon isers in Africa that Italy was a lso a powerful country. Various fascist intellig entsia and cultural pro moters, suc h as M argherita Sarfatti’s personal endorsemen t of il Novecent o, were campaigning for the displacement of a particular form of Italian cu ltural capital. Car lo Enri co Rava, one of the foun ders of Razi onalism o, went one step further by linking h is preferred movem ent to th e con cept mediterrane ità i n essays he published in Domus in 1931. Rava argued t hat ‘ … i t is in this “ Medite rranean spirit” that we should then look for the characte ristic italiani tà t hat is still l acking in our ne w rational architecture ’ ( Capre si, 2012, p. 59 ) . R av a f ou n d p o te n t ia l o f t h is ‘ s p ir it ’ in the local forms of No rth Africa, but any incor poration of them into italianità had to be justified by link ing their origins, and there fore their worth, back to Ro man - ness. Also during this per iod, many designs i n the re alised coloni es were defi ned by a n e clectic negotiation o f ancient Mediterranean forms - local vernac ular ones inc lud e d - and mode rn forms. Often, th is ne gotiation had less to do with modern forms and more to do with forms based on reviva l movements suc h as neo - Renai ssance or n eo - Moori sh. We re thes e va r iou s ecl ectic a nd flexibl e desig n approaches simply a matter of ae st hetic p r eference, or coul d they have ve iled a Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 145 political motive ? Had the fascist regime us ed such sync reti sm as soft rhe torical means of appeasing indigenous peoples? In the cas e of North Africa, K rystyna von Hen neberg (1 996: 377) pointed out : Kee n to the need to put a bene volent face on Italian ru le, many arc hitects developed an uncharacte ristically ec lectic and flex ible approach to questions of de sign. The militant anti - regionalism of Ita lian Ratio nalist and fascist architecture was frequently ec lipsed by a more syncretic style that incorporated 'o rientalizing' and local eleme nts . Not eve ryone, however, was convinced that pluralist ic approache s and/or the ir resulting hybrid ised forms, particular ly when derived from eclectic rev ivalisms, were of any merit. F or example, important I talian architects such as Rava and fellow rationa list Lu ig i P icc in a t o th o ug ht n e o - M oo ris h bu i ld in gs in N orth Afr ica were inappropriate (F uller, 200 7, p. 118) . Many architects felt there was a need to find a unified co loni al architectura l language, which in turn c ould benefit the re g ime b y le a v ing a stro ng im pressi on on coloni sed peopl es a nd nei ghbouring European powe rs al ike ( F uller, 2007, p. 15) . Y et, would the i mplementation of a singular approach abando n or incorporate localisms? T he answer, in t he o p in io n of von Henne ber g (1996: 378) , was mo re complex: ‘E clec tic or neo - Moorish structures proved difficult to re concil e with an official architectural dis course based on unity and order . Diversity, afte r all, had been c learly identifie d with liberal rule, and with weaknes s’. Early 1920s – mid 1930s - The Desired C olon ies in South America The fascist regime utilised the c oncept of mediterrane ità , more precisely Ro man - ness and/or Latin - ness, i n bo th its cul tur al and political rhetoric perta ining to South America. Un like in the re alised c olonies, Ita lians had al ready be en living in these desired col onies for decades. The goal, there fore, wa s to f irst gain the support of I talians citizens who happened to be living abroad 5 5 Th is was the view point of the f ascist r egime w ho refus ed to ackn owledge the ex patriates and their offspr ing a s Argen tines or B razilian s who ha p pened to be of I talian des cent. Th ose displaced to Sou th Amer ica, tended to vie w th emselves as the la tter . and then to George Epolito, MEDITERRANEITÀ O LTREMARE: Assimilatio n, Appro priatio n, or Rejectio n? The Impo sition of the Fa scist Aesthetic Ideology of Medite rranea n - ness Ove rseas fro m 19 35 to 1940 146 convince them and pe ople of Iber ian ance stry that they sha red a co mmon Roman heritage - Roman - ness and/or Latin - ness. 6 In order to promote the transference of Italian cultura l capital into the region, private impresarios, cultural institutions, and government agencies s p on s o red cultural events . Each event served as a soft , persua s iv e rhet orical mean s of espous ing the virtues ital ianità, h idden under the guise o f a share d Roman - ne ss . Italian art, archite cture, literature, and lan guage 7 we re promoted i n sa id events with each containing a vary ing degree of political propaganda. Some of th e ke y event s in clu de d : Filippo Marinetti’s lecture to ur to promote F uturismo in 1926 in São Pa ulo, Ri o de Janei ro, Córd oba, Rosari o, Buenos Ai res and Mont evideo; 8 Contemporane ously, the soft rheto rical argument of Roman - nes s was advanced in Argentina to the p oint of linking the co untry histor ically to ital ianità. ‘Betwe en 1922 and 1931, the f ascist re gime wante d to convince the Argentines that their history, or part of it at least, was a direc t outcome of Italian historical a gency’ (F in c he ls t e in , 2010, p. 87 ). Dating back to even before the time of Garibaldi, Italians had p lay e d key roles i n the deve lopment of Arge ntina and th e fasci sts wanted to embe lli s h this f act . In add ition to o ffering their own interpretation of Argentin e history to the general po pu lace, the fasc ists realised that the y also had to court potentially like - minded politicians . ‘ Throughout the 1930 s an Argentine group of politically co nservative nac ionalistas met with Mussolini personall y’ ( Fin c he ls t e in , 2010, p. 111). I nc luded in the gro up w as the upc oming politician, M anuel Fre sco. Ye t why limit the e ffort sole ly to Argentina? In 1934 , Margherita Sarfatt i’s 1930 Novecento Art Exhibit in Bue nos Aires and Montevi deo; Pi etro Maria Bardi’s 19 33 Architettura d’o ggi Exhibit i n Buenos Aires which featured the ar chitectural works of R aziona lismo. 6 In this instance, the term s Mediterr anea n - nes s and Italian - ne ss wer e most likely avoided as the form er could have been e asily interpre ted diffe re n tly by both the Por tug uese and/o r Spanish creol es; the la tter wou ld ha ve exposed t he fascist s’ ove rtly o ffensi ve belief in I talian su periority . 7 Litera ture an d langu age were a lso importa nt par ts of th e sof t rh etorica l campai gn, bu t they a re not th e main f ocus of th is essa y. The f ollowing li terar y cultu ral even ts took plac e: Mus solini con fida nt, Fra nco Cia rlantin i’s 1927 book fa ir in A rgentin a; Piero P arini’ s 1931 l ecture tour , aim ed at spr eading th e Italian lang ua ge and nation alism th rough out Arge ntin a; an d noted I talian au thor, Mas simo Bon tempelli’s 1934 tour s in Sou th Amer ica. 8 Ex cept in th e case of Rio, the citie s ch osen f or th e tou r were on es which had large Italian expa triate popu lati ons, ‘ Italians wh o happen ed to be living a broad’ in the ey es of the I talian fascists. Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 147 M us so l in i attempted to broaden his sphere of influ ence in t he r egion . P rofessor Finchelstein po inted out: ‘ … Mussolini wrote to his South Am e rican embass ies that the time was “favorable” to e xpand fascist propaganda in the ir respec tive countries ’ (2010: 94) . 1935 – 1940 - Italy an d He r R ealise d Colon ies in Afr ica M us so l in i’ s in va s ion o f E t h io p ia in 1935 brought e xtens ive change s for the I talian people both home a nd abroad . T he fasc ist regime fought b ack w idespread international c ondemnat ion and sanctio ns by becoming increas ingly more repress ive ( Deniso n, Ren, & Gebre medhin, 2006, p. 63). 9 One of th e potentially last f ine examples of a plura listic approac h to design may be found in th e realis ed colony of Tripoli, Libya. The e clectic nego tiation of ancient Mediterranea n and modern fo rms found A rtisanal Market , Souk a l - Mushi r was designed by one o f the most prol ific architects in the North African co lony , As a r esult of the war in E th io p ia, ‘ (a )ll of Italian political life, archi tecture inc luded, turned to greater uniformity ’ ( Fuller, 2007, p. 88) . P lura listic des ign appro aches we re n ow succumbing to the strangleho ld of fascism as the re gime ti ght ene d its gri p on the creative proc ess. 10 Florestano di Fausto . His new ce ntre was both ‘ Cubist and rational in i ts conce ption, the market - place satisfied the claim of Italian authorities bo th to mode rnize and support local traditio ns’ (von Hennebe rg, 1996, p . 386). 11 This probable end reflected a greate r change which started to take pl ace the following year in the realise d colon ies. A cc ording to F uller ( 2007: 134), ‘… architects ’ attentio n s hi fted from North to East Africa in 1936 … the questio n of coloni al - architectural syncreti sm faded out all toge ther…’ V on Henneb erg’s description of the Artisanal Market in syncretic terms was po ssible in North 9 In t he re alise d col ony of Eth iopia, Italian s introdu ced an ti - miscege na tion laws in order to enf orce the s eparati on of the rac es, which in turn , led to mu ch miser y and an guish for E ritrea ns. 10 Florest ano di Fausto ha d been res pons ible for m any importa nt work s previou sly in th e realised coloni es in the Aegean Islands. 11 In teresting, v on Henn eberg also poin ted out th at the fascis ts and a rchitec ture pres s in Ita ly ignored the bu ilding. George Epolito, MEDITERRANEITÀ O LTREMARE: Assimilatio n, Appro priatio n, or Rejectio n? The Impo sition of the Fa scist Aesthetic Ideology of Medite rranea n - ness Ove rseas fro m 19 35 to 1940 148 Africa where loc al traditio ns represe nted the ‘Medi terranean spirit’ wh ich Rava had previously us urped in order to rhetorical ly justify ita lianit à. ‘The m ilitant anti - regionalis m of I talian Rationalist archi tec ture’ that von He nneberg was also discussing as prefe rable by many in North Africa was now more attainable in East Africa. From a fascist ideologue’s point of view, the latter was a cultural tabula rasa in regards to built form due to the nomadic nature of its so ciety. These least civilised pe oples and their built history left little or no localisms, no regionalisms, to ap pro priate. Part of this shift to East Africa, resulted in Asmara experiencing unprec edented growth from 1935 – 1941 with buildings more characteristic of more humble or simplified versions o f Razionalis mo an d Novecent o principles. Over previous decades in Asmara, many neo - revi valist wo rks had been bu ilt, but dur ing th is period, they we re more mode rn in characte r. In the midst of the massive building campaign under way in A smara, in 1937 Italian att itudes in urban p lanning acknowledged the need for f lexibility wh ilst designing for the various conditions related to cl imate and races of peoples who , as the delegates thought, had different habits and levels of civilisat ion (von Henne ber g, 1996, p. 382). In othe r words, the b lackness of Asmara and its lack of ancient Roman str uctures had to be treate d different ly, not ne cess ar ily w ith respec t for the loca ls. L ocali sms post - rationali s ed as re lated t o me diterraneità were not part o f th is argume nt. Inste ad, Roman - ness in this instance must now be implemented as a means civilis ing the n atives. Harsh, restrict ive fas cist pol icies , such as the o ne s mandating the s eparation of the races , inf luenced the layout of the modern city of Asmara. The works in thi s part of the city that we re once intended for Italians only, have now been appropriated by the very peo ple who were originally exc luded fr o m in ha b it in g them . The legacy left behind from de cades o f Italian ru le is a mixed one. ‘F o r many Asmarini the c ul tural capital attach ed to the Italian past provides them with a claim to a long - standing co smopolitanism ’ (Fuller, 2011, p .14). Ye t for the many who can remember the atroc ious acti o ns carried out by the fascists, pai nful mem or ies en dure. Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 149 1935 – 1940 - The Desire d Colo nie s in Sou th Ame rica In 1935 in South Ame rica, renowned Italian arc hitect Alberto Satoris co ntinued to utilise lecture tours as a soft rheto ric means of promoting arc hitecture, more sp e c if ic a l ly Razio nalis mo and its connection to m editerrane ità. At venues such a s the First Argent ine Congre ss on Urbanism, The Sc ientific Society, and the Faculty of Arch itecture in Buenos A ires, he unas hamedly attempted ‘ to rais e awareness of the accomplis hments of fascism in the field of urbanism’ ( Ball e nt and Crispiani, 1995, p. 60) . His l e ctures titles also clearly linked fascism and architecture: Archite cture and the State, and T he Arc hitecture of the State as ‘Inhe rent to the F ascist Concept of the City ’ (Liernur, 2001, p. 172 ) . The fasc ist i deologue s promoting the transfere nce of Italian cultural capita l in the de sired colonies must have thought their efforts were finally coming to fr u it io n . Mussolini’s continuous meetings throughout the 1930 s with Argentine nacionalis tas , his reg ime’s c lose diplomatic t ies with Braz il, 12 The main targets had always been two - fo ld – dire ct politica l engagement with loc al cr eole eli tes and soft rhetoric trying to convince thos e of Italian lineage living abroad to embrace the fascist vis ion. In 1935, in Braz il, Marce llo Pia ce n t in i , the regime ’s mos t powerful architect, was starting to benefit from this dual targeting strategy. I n the case of the former, he was invi t ed by the Brazil government to de s ig n a public work in Rio de Janeir o; whil e in the cas e of t he latter, he received a private commission by an Italian immigrant/e ntreprene ur, Ermelino Matarazzo in São Paulo. Contemporane ously, from 1936 – 1 940, the dual strategy see med to co nverge pos itivel y in Argentina. Those ye ars marked the politica l reign of the previously ment ioned nac ionalista, Manu el Fr esco , as gover nor of th e Provi nce of Buenos Ai res. Fresco had commissi oned his friend, h is i nstruc tions to his South American e mbassies to expand fascist propaganda in 1934, Bardi’s 1933 Exhibition of Italian architecture, and the constant bombardment of soft cultural rhetor ic ai m ed at I tali an e xpatriates in the region, must have all contributed to this pe rce ived breakthrough. 12 Brazilian Presid ent Vargas was an admi rer of il Duce. George Epolito, MEDITERRANEITÀ O LTREMARE: Assimilatio n, Appro priatio n, or Rejectio n? The Impo sition of the Fa scist Aesthetic Ideology of Medite rranea n - ness Ove rseas fro m 19 35 to 1940 150 Francisco Salamone, an architect/e ngineer of Italian origins, to de sign projects i n the prov ince. In the midst of the converge nce of politics and architecture in S outh America, the soft rhe toric became aimed at cajo ling tho se o f Iberian ance stry into believing that they were linked to I talians through a common heritage of Roman - ne ss a n d/o r Latin - ness . In a bo ld statement in 19 37, Emilio De Bono, a founder of fasc ism who previously had governed in Libya from 1925 – 29, declared: The Latin re publics of America are living expressio ns of Roman - nes s … in the new co ntinent … If a Roman citize n of t he time of Augustus were t o be reborn in Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, o r Brazil … th is Ro man citizenshi p would feel the same beating of heart, the same geniality of mind, the re blossoming of intel ligence , as in the lands o f the E mpire … Fascis t Italy, elevated to the rank of imperial Ital y, is sending today her caring and inaugural salute to he r sisters of Am erica … ( F inc h e lst e in , 2010, pp. 105 - 106) 13 Gentile phrases we re abound in De Bono’s state ment, but stri k ing ly omitted were any refe rences to those o f native or African origins who populated these Latin republ ics. Yet would such soft rhetoric persuade the go vernments and people of Braz il and Argentina to embrace their fasc ist imper ial Italian s isters? It would appear to be so in the case o f Piace ntini who was o riginally a ppointe d by the Braz ilian government to design the campus of the Cidade Universitária do Ri o de Jan eiro . Hi s designs for the bui ldings on the campus, a process that spanne d from 1935 - 1938 (T ogno n, 1999, p. 175) , were formally and spatially reminiscent of thos e he had previously de signed througho ut Ita ly. Regardless of location, all his des igns express ed a pure italianità versi on of Mediterranean - ness in the form of hi s s ignature strippe d - down classicism. Carioca arch itects, such as Luc io Costa, were not acce pting of Piacent ini’s propo sal and wanted Le Corbus ier’s inc lusion in the proje ct. 13 Ex cerpts originally tak en from La Ráz o n (A rgentina), 24 Ma y, 1937. Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 151 At the time, Brazil was having sim ilar debate s in architecture which tr ied to reconc il e modernisatio n, localisms, and national ident ity, br asilidade . Co sta acknowledged ‘that the new architecture was international, but em phasised its Latin roots, whic h would m ake it m ore acceptable for Brazil…’ ( Quezado Dexkke r, 2001, p. 17) . In th is case , the s pecif icity of te rms su c h as Latin - n es s and/or M e diterranean - ness varied depend ing on the nat ion concerned . Cos ta’s interpretation of the te rm Latin - ness was not directly re lated to the fasci st’s prom otion of italianit à . Me diterranean - ness for many Brazilians was de fined by brasilidade and , altho ugh it had its or igins in Roman - nes s, it was more aligned with the h istoric per iod of Portugue se Co lonialism. These di fferences i n defi n i ng terms fuelled the nationa l debates which le d in part to the fas cist arch itect not recei ving t he commi ssion for the c ampus. Perhaps Piacentini, a nd by extension fasc ism, would have mo re s uccess in São Paulo which had a very large Italian ‘ colon y’. 14 Woul d De Bono’s per suasiv e r hetor ic be more convincing in neighbour ing Argentina? Many intellectuals fe lt that decades of heavy Italian immigrat ion had been undermining the essential Hispanic character o f the nati o n. Mediterranean - ness to this group of c reoles was aligned more spe cifi ca lly to h ispanidad , wh ich represe nted an attempt at reclaiming the Hispan ic roots of the country. Instead of Me diterranean - ness being seen as an overarc hing concept conne cting creoles of Spanish desce nt wi th I talians, this gr oup’s pre ference of identify i ng with hispanidad drew a lin e betwee n the two groups . At the same t ime, this group of P iac e n t in i’ s de s ign of t he E d if íc io Conde M atarazzo, 1935 - 1939 (T ogno n, 1999, p. 1 82) , was an example of pure “italianità, as it appro priated few localisms, and thus appea red more l ike an Italian building strange ly misplaced. Despite its odd displacement, the building today has been transformed into the Prefeitura f or São Paulo. Matarazzo retained Piace ntini serv ices to rec onfigure his villa , 193 9 – 1941 ( To gnon , 1999, p. 189) , and to design the Universidade Co mmercial Matarazzo which he began in 1938 ( To gnon, 19 99, p . 193) . There was , however, no real breakthrough for fascism to ta ke ho ld. 14 I n Ita lian, th e word f or ‘colon y’ can also applied to a large gr oup (of I talian s) liv ing a broad. I t does not n ecessa rily mean that said group is un der the juri s diction of th e Italia n gov ern ment. Matina Kous idi, THRO UGH THE LENS OF SIGFRIED GIEDION: CIAM IV and the stay in Greece 254 architecture 3 Although it was Marce l Breuer who had suggeste d that the fourth meeting of the C ongress ‘ shoul d be held on board a ship in ste ad of on land ’, and Giedion appeared abl e to ‘ o perate the s ynthesi s betwe en the bold promises of Le Corbusier i n Par is, the realisat ions of Gropius at D essau and of Mies van der Rohe at We ißenhof Siedlung ’ (De rouet, 2002 - 2003, p. 44) . Although the bond betwe en the two men concluded i n the end of 1934, the ir associ at io n and the fact that Zervos had been keen on demonstrati ng the ho uses of Santorin i is la n d to Giedion s ince February 193 1 ( Ibid .) s erved as cata lysts for the organization of CIAM IV. An immediate res ponse to Moscow’s indication that th e earliest date for t he Congre ss to take place in the c ity would be in 1934 was crucial aftera ll. 4 in respons e t o t he search fo r a place th at would allow for ‘ intimate perso nal contac ts ’ among the member s 5 , t he fact t hat Zervos had direct links to the Paris ian branch of the navigation company Neptos facilitated B re uer’ s o r ig in a l s ug ge s t io n 6 . Meanwhile, F red Forbát ’s reassurance that ‘ the o pportunities fo r our grou p in Greec e are obje ctively exceptionall y good ’ 7 Forbát had arrived to Gree ce in the end of February 1933 and reporte d to Gie d io n on monthly basis, ma in ly from the residence o f architect Gustav Eglau on ru e Di mokri tou 11 , regarding the progress of the Gr e ek group formation , the arrangements of the Congre ss, and at ti me s, his impress io ns on Greek architecture and its representatives . ‘ T h e re are still some very goo d architects, who wor k more or l ess in our sense ’, he had menti oned in hi s correspond ence, (Fo rbat, 1 933) , re i nfor ced the selecti on of the Mediterranean re gion of Ath ens as host for the Congres s . 3 Th is is the first traceable corresponden ce between Giedion and Zerv os; in that period the lat t er was seeking to expand his journal acro ss more art istic discip lines, also pl anning a German lang uag e edition, approach ing Roger Gins burger and Adolf B ehring, a s well. S ee: Weiss, 2012, p. 39 - 40. 4 Ac cording to G iedion’ s recolle cti on, follow ing the c ancella tion of the M oscow pla ns an d Bre uer’s sugges t ion , Le C orbusier phoned to Z ervos and ‘ t he very next mor nin g’, th e y received a letter from the Greek maritime c ompan y Neptos , c onfirm ing that th ey wou ld provide th e delegates with the steam er Pat ris II ‘un der advan t ageous conditions .’ See: Giedion, 1949, p. 3 6. 5 In chapter VII, en titled Ein e Gr ie chenl and rei se /At hene , f rom th e memoirs of Fred Forbát k ept at the Swed is h Muse um o f Ar chi te ct ure, the Hungar ia n - born archite ct expands o n his acquaintances dur ing his s tay in Greec e, namely with Dimitr ios Pik ionis, I oann is Despotopou los, a nd W ilhelm Dö rpfel d. 6 I t was Ch ristian Z ervos’ s brothe r, S tamos, one of the frie nds through whom the Gr eek s teamboat could be plac ed to the dis posal of t he dele gates. See: Fessas - Emmanou il , 2014, p. 209. 7 Forbat, letter to Giedi o n, 05.04.19 33, gta arch iv/ETHZ - C IAM . Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 255 referring to Dimitr is Pikio nis , Emamnoue l K rie z is , and the young I oannis Despo to pou l os – who had links to the Bauhaus and would soo n construct ‘ a very beautiful pub lic sanatorium ’ ( Ibid .). The con trib ution of S igfri ed Giedi on’s contacts to the organizatio n of the fourth meeting of the Congress was multil a yered; these cove red a wide international range, which ver ified M adame de Mandrot’s o riginal reques t to orga n is e the initia l CIA M meeting in 1928. A ssum ing that Gie d io n ’ s pre vious relat ionship with Zervos fac ili ta ted the determinance of steamboat Patris II as th e ma in loc a t io n of th e Congr ess’s fou rth meet ing , then his co rrespondence with Forbát all o wed for an additional prog ramming of the delegates’ s tay in Greece, whi ch wou ld be finalised through Papadak i ’ invo lvement . I t was just o n April 30, 1933 , however, – ju st thre e months befor e the com menc ement of the Con gress – that Giedion announced to Papadaki – head of the Gre ek group during CIAM IV – that t his would be he ld on th e voyages of Patris II , with an interven ing stay in Greece 8 . ‘W ithout do ubt a new life beg ins’ | Enc ount eri ng Gree ce In contrast to the CI A M IV discour se , th e urban structure of Athens did not allude at that t ime to an organic c ity, as in no other f ield ‘ co u ld the la c k o f a creativity capab le of knowledge, fee ling and w ill to fight the forces of ev il be more ev iden t ’ (Pi ki onis, 1 933 , p. 7 9 5). Aiming to de fine a he althy, functional and e ff ic ie n t urban structure , the generated di scours e at CIAM I V de ployed the terms organic and bio lo g ic a l 9 8 Follow ing a te legram rec eiv ed from th e respectiv e Comm ission, commun icating th at a meetin g of the C ongress could not b e held to th e city of Moscow prior t o 1934. Giedi on, lett er to Papa dak i, 30.04.19 33, gta arch iv/ETHZ - C IAM . as metaphors in its discourse ; h owev er, t he bio lo g ic a l approach to spatial and urban des ign was not new. It was pre c eded by the CIAM II lecture of Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret , in wh ich they argued that ‘ habit at i on is a biol ogical ph enomenon ’ ( Steinmann, 1979, p. 60) , as we ll as by Siegfried Ebe ling ’s prompt to engage the importance of a plasmatic approach 9 Sok ratis Geor giadis d raw s on th e percepti on of fun ction as concept a nd guideli ne in th e contex t of C IAM IV by m aking r eferences also to V an Ee steren ’s men tion of th e city as a liv ing organ ism , as w ell as to Le C orbu sier’ s com paris on of th e city to a genu inely b iologic al cre ation in L e C harte d’Ath énés . See: Georgiadi s, 2014, p. 49 - 59. Matina Kous idi, THRO UGH THE LENS OF SIGFRIED GIEDION: CIAM IV and the stay in Greece 256 to architecture – o ne that wou ld ‘ relate to the human body mo re direct ly than ever ’ ( Ebeling & Papapetro s, 2010, p. 34 ) –, wh ile it ant icipate d the d efini tion of a settlement as ‘ a co ntinually evo lving organism ’ after the combi nation of biology and technolo gy in the theori es of Constanti nos D o xia dis (Wigley , 2001, p. 87). F rom w ithin an urban region that was struggling to re spond to human necessi ti es, the Congre ss’s investigation in t o the organic cit y w as co ntradictory , but nev erth el ess imperative. A im ing to adopt to modern social needs and ‘ replace the neo - c las s ic is m of it s tired mid - nineteenth century ’ , the rapid growth o f the city of Athens was ne g lec t ing the fact that planning was a crucial factor for effi c iency and seem ed to ‘ run into a vacuum on a ll sides ’ 10 (B eyer , 1967, p . 11 4 ). That s aid , t he lack of planning in the Athenian territory was not apparen t s o le ly in t h e f ie lds of urban structure . F o llow ing S t am o Papadaki , i n Greece ‘ al l kinds of cons tructions are performed without architecture ’ 11 , and thus coo rdinated responses beyon d urbanism and across the field of archite cture we re of vital importance . Th is absence of planning – ‘ th e v io lat ion o f t h e p rin c ip le s’ , ac c o rdin g to P ik io n is (Pikion is, 193 3, p. 79 5) – was identified with the ‚forc es of evil’ and sought an active response . Contrary to the unfavourable obse rvations abo ut the c ity, Giedion expresse d optimism about the possibility of reso lving the spatial and urban issu es in Greece, e x te n din g h is v ie w ac ross M editerrenean countries , such as Spain, Ita ly and Algeria, wh ich during th e 19th century had b ee n ‘ asleep ’ a nd on ly ‘ fo llowed the re sults verified w ith the North ’ (Gi edion , 1 933, p. 114 0) . ‘W ithout doubt a new life begins ’, Gie d io n e xclai med. 10 Eric h Mend el sohn records his impres sions of the Ath enia n urba n structu re, ac q uired du ring h is visit to Greec e in 1930, by deploying th e metaphor o f the organ i c, wh en he descr i bes the u rban developm ent runn ing into ‘an unplan ned space, t he filling u p o f w hich ca n at best l ea d to partia l soluti o ns bu t never to the orga nic grow th of a great city .’ See: B eyer, 1967, p. 114. 11 Approx imately two y ears before the CI AM IV congres s, P apadaki wrote to Gied ion and requ ested ‘a s ervice to ou r section ’, d u e to the obsc urity th at accom p anied the C ongress ’s work a nd pu rpose in G reece. I n particu lar, he asked f or Giedion’ s writte n testam ent, wh ich he c ould later trans late an d publis h in k ey technical j ourna l of th e time. Pa padaki, letter to Gie dion, 04 .05.1 932, gta archiv/ETHZ - CIA M. Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 257 Among the sites o f ancient her itage – suc h as the temple s of Parthenon (Akrop oli s), Poseid on (Cape Sounion) and Aphaia (Aegina) –, t he CI AM I V delegates , als o visited sel ected contemporary constructions, in the period between A ugust 5 -8, 1933, s ituated in the exte nded region of th e city of A thens . If the Italian members of CIAM IV, such as Gino Pollini and Giuseppe Terragni, demonstrat ed e nthusi asm for Ancient Greek monuments , G ied io n – toge ther wit h L á sz ló M oh o ly - N agy, Carl Hubacher and Rudo lf Steiger – were equally attracted by the a forementi oned Modern Movement archi te cture manifestat ions. Embracing the hypothes is that modernity allude s to the ‘ experience o f the new and the hope fo r emancipation’ 12 (He ynen, 2014, p. 95) , the newly c onstructe d structures , highly influenc ed by Modernist appropriations of W estern Euro pe in the early 20th centur y, conveye d a similar as piration. For instance, co nstruction works at V illa Fakidis in G lyfada – a Southe rn suburb of Athens – de signed by Stamo Papadaki had rec ent ly conclude d, featuring a combi nati on of morphol ogical sh apes testa ment of the, innovative at that t ime, ‘ structural potent ial o f cantilevering in reinforce d concre te ’ (T z o nis a nd R o d i, 2013, p. 104). The building was c lothe d in white p laster emphasizing an ‘ ex qu is ite formalist exercise ’ (Ib id. ), whi ch echoed the ‘ vigour with which Athens adopted the ho using and arch itectural mode l of Mo dernism ’ (V at o poulos , 2008, p. 169). Here, the terrace ‘ has becom e the main element of the house ’ ( Karantinos , 1934, p . 121) , onto which one could take pleasure in the ample views to the Saro nic gulf and the proximal islands, due to its seaside location. In contrast to the pictures sho t by Carl Hubacher 13 12 Note that H ilde Heyn e in her 2014 essa y The m ost modern materia l of them all… r eflec ts on the un derstanding of modernit y in a broader sen se, by posing the qu estions ‘w hat if we understa nd it to be – as Marshall Berman would ha ve it – abou t the exper ience of t he n ew and the hope f or eman cipation ? Wha t if we were n ot to see mod ernity as some thin g that ema nates f rom the W est an d slow ly radiates to the oth er parts of the wor ld, bu t rather a s a set of hop es and dr eams tha t can be appro priated in many ways and that g ives rise to multip le varian ts?’ , for exa mple, which frame close - ups of the vis it t o t h e bu ild i ng – such as the delegates’ wanders on it s roof , the pai nte rs applying the last strokes of colour and the juxtaposition of the 13 Ca rlo Theodor (Carl) Huba cher was a S wiss archite ct engi neer and amate ur phot ographer – in partn ership w ith Ru dolf Steiger at th at t ime – who was aboard t he steamb oat Patr is II with his wife a nd profession al phot ographer Gr ete, a nd contr ibuted s ignifica ntly t o the photogra phic documen tation of C IAM IV. See: W ei ss, 2012. Matina Kous idi, THRO UGH THE LENS OF SIGFRIED GIEDION: CIAM IV and the stay in Greece 258 flat roof with the long itudinal lin e of the hor izon – Giedi on captures th e house i n its entirety. Figure 1. Stamo Papadaki , Villa F akid is , Glyfa da, 1933. Sig fr ie d G ied ion a rchives, gta /E THZ. In one of the surviving picture s , t he w hit e s ing le - de tached volume o f the house is situated in the middle of the composition ; it is framed by the sea, a neighbo u r building and the s oil of the unproc esse d road that leads to the sea, a lluding to the s ig n if ic an c e of the whole in Anc ient Greek architecture ( Fig. 1 ) . Gi edi on would later e mphas is e on the imp ortance o f the agreement, instead of the form , referring also to Le Corbusier’s interest in the perce ption of Anci ent arch itecture as a who le. ‘ In fro nt of the temple of Aphaia at Aeg ina , I acc identally threw a glance over the s houl der of Le Co rbusier o pening his big sketchboo k ’, Gied io n describes , mention ing that ‘h e does not draw the detail s of forms, he no tes the ensemb les (Gied ion, 1934, p. 80 ). In the c ase of Villa Fakid is , Gi ed i on per ceives architecture and the s urrounding landscap e , through h is lens, as a n ine x tr ic ab le entity , apprec iating t he value of conte xtualisation (Po pescu, 2 011) . A s in h is succeedi ng discourse o n monumentality , here, the n atural elements, namely the sea and the so il, complete the p icture and are groupe d in a unifie d architectural ensemb le (Gied ion et a l. 1943a) . S imilarly to h is picture fro m the tem ple of Poseidon at Cape So uni o n ( Fig. 2 ), archite cture co nsiders the ground and at th e Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 259 same time, ‘e rects proudly the abstract building’ (G iedion, 1934, p . 78); following Gied ion, this was the obj ective of co ntemporary archite cture, as we ll. F igu re 2 . T emp l e of P osei d on , Cape Sounion , Atti ca, ca. 444 BC . Sigf rie d G ied ion a rchives, gta/ETHZ. From within the same discourse on the a pprec iation of the surroundings – in referenc e to the architectura l arti fact – derives the p icture o f the school in Athens, built by Patr oklos Karant inos 14 14 I n 1933, f ollowing th e CIAM confer ence, Pa troklos Karan tinos wou ld follow u p on his acqu aintan ce with Giedion an d send h im a portfolio of his works, a ccompanied by th e note: ‘ Quelques de mes travaux. à M. Giedi on, avec amiti é et reco nnaissance .’ The selected works inc luded th e public s chools at Cha rokopou, Kalama ki, Nauplion , Psy chikon and Kav ala, as well as the V illa at Ch alandri. i n 1930 ( Fig. 3 ) , f rom the visit on August 3, 1933. In thi s case, Gi e dion’s picture does not depict the entirety of the building, but captures a partial perspe ctive of the school . F o llo win g t h e n e wly initiated gu idelines of the architectural department at the M ini stry o f Education, the sch ool fe atured a f le x ib le spat ial struc ture with wh ite ortho gonal volume s, which opened up to outdoor spaces fo ll o wing a ‘ rhythmic stepping up of te rraces ’ (T zonis and R odi, 2013, p. 96). I n o ne of the s u rv iv ing p ic t ur e s in Gie d io n ’ s archives, a group of children is caught wh ile running o n it s lo n git u d in a l roo ftop, in contrast with the static volumes on the Akropo lis of Athens i n the bac kground and the roof s of the neighbouring houses. Matina Kous idi, THRO UGH THE LENS OF SIGFRIED GIEDION: CIAM IV and the stay in Greece 260 Figure 3. Pat rokl os Ka rantino s , Sc hool in Akropol i , Athe ns , 1930 . Sigf rie d G ie dio n a rchive s, gta/ETHZ. This frame alludes to Giedion’s menti on of Mohol y - Nagy’s o bservation that o n the island of Santorini the house s ‘ merged so plasti c ally into one ano ther that the children were pl aying on their neighbo urs’ flat roofs ’, while due to the natural steepne ss o f the slope they were built o n, the se ‘ graduated s teps ’ allowe d each hous e uno bstructed views ov er the s ea (Gi edi on, 1949 ). Thro ugh th is pr is m , in his vis ual reco rds from the Cycladic is la nd s, the pictures of lo ca l persons standing in the intermediate rooft ops are frequent . I n them, one cannot dis t in gu ish the boun d ari es between t he hous es, wh ich su cceed one a nother – on horizontal o r vertica l level ( Fig. 4 ) , as the architectura l ensemble is expresse d through alternative means . For Giedion, these arc hitectural forms could not be equally appreciate d if re moved from their geo graphical and topolog ical context, as the y had been ‘originally born out o f this light and of this land’. ‘As the detached figures of t he Partheno n become dull in the No rth and as the marble needs t he Gr eek at mosph ere to m aint a in its shi ne,’ Giedi on writes , ‘th e Greek form is not transpo rtable’ ( Giedi on, 1934, p. 80) . Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 261 Figure 4. R esi den ti al sett l ement on San tori ni i sl an d, Greec e, August 1933 . Sigf rie d G ie dio n a r chi ve s, gta/E THZ. The exa ct r oute of t he former E ng lis h co a l s h ip , w h ic h par t of the delegates rented with the help of Papad a ki , dur ing the crui se amo ng the Greek isla nd s is unknown 15 ; Gi ed i on w ou ld la te r refer to Aegina, Poro s, Santorini and Cape Sounio n , as the selected sto ps of the trip, but in h is arch ive photographs fr o m Seriph o s and Ios islands also feature. Narrow alleys forme d by the close proximity of buildings , children framed by the stee p development of a Cycladic town, and dry surfac e s of land fad ing away to the sea r epresent hi s poles of interest. A part fro m the pres ence of contemporary archite cture pri nc ip le s (Dje lepy, 1934 , p. 93 ) o n these unspoilt grounds, in the photogr aphic co llection of G ie d io n the impact of the natura l surrou ndings, the texture a nd colour of the houses and above all, the natural light – evident a ls o throughout M oholy - Nagy’s film – are also being r ec orded. 15 Eric Mumford, base d on inf ormation p rovi ded by I saac S aporta, n otes tha t the sch edule prepared by the Greek gro up listed the plac es to be visit ed as Hydra , Milos, Santorini, N axos, Paros , Delos, Soun ion, Monemva sia and Mykon os. S ee: Mu mford, 2000, p. 295. Matina Kous idi, THRO UGH THE LENS OF SIGFRIED GIEDION: CIAM IV and the stay in Greece 262 ‘ A need to return once agai n to Greece ’ | Ev aluat ing th e s tay Figure 5. R esi den ti al sett l ement on S an tori ni isl an d, Greec e, August 1933 . Sigf rie d G ie dio n a r chi ve s, gta/E THZ. Long after the return of the steamboat Patris II to Marseilles , Gie d io n wo u ld recall CIAM IV wi th a n essen ce of sentimental longing, characte rising it as ‘ the mo s t in s p ire d of all congres ses ’ ( Giedion, 1942, p. x) . It was, undoubte dly, a multifaceted te stament o f in s p ira t io n . Reg arding the po tent ial of the Co ngress to address the rising issues o f the modern ci ty, G iedion la te r argued that it had ‘ laid down the basic lines of the pre sent - day city b uild ing ’ and thus ‘ had great influence on the authorities ’ ( G ied io n, 1955, p. 28 ). In referen ce to th e delegates’ engagement with Greec e though, anot her source of in f lu ence had become apparent . I n c it in g M o h o ly - N agy, Giedion emphasize d on ‘ how directly the Greek wo rld speaks to us – though i n a very different sense to what the nineteenth century understo od by this ’ ( Gied ion, 1949, p. 37 ). El ements inherent to the Gree k landscape, such as the mathemat ical prec ision of archaeologic al re mains, the organic freedom of fo rms and the abstractness o f vernacular dwe llings ( F ig. 5 ) were pol e s of deep i nterest f or Gi edion. They served as a vehi cle to to uch upon notions of transportabi lity, p ermanence and influence – to re - evaluate the principles o f the mo dern epoque . Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 263 Notably , references to Mediterranean arch itecture we re ‘ deeply e mbedded in the whol e Modern M ove ment fr om 190 5 onwa rds ’ (C olquhoun, 2007, p . 148) and appeared, at t imes, as in f lue n t ia l as the evoluti on of technol ogy 16 (Me ganck, L . et al., 2013) . On Greek grounds, the reco rdi ng o f Mode rnist structures was often accompanied by the ir analogies to the vernac ular architectur es of the Greek is la nd s 17 , as in Heinrich Lauterbach’ s observation that ‘ the Greek archi te cts are in happy un ion with their architectura l trad ition on the Ae gean islands ’ – assessi ng th is un io n as a genesis, ‘ not a con venti on ’ (La uterba ch, 1932, p. 346). Through the same prism , P a no s D j e lep y in h is C ahiers d’A rt artic le dedicated to the hou ses of th e Greek archipelago stated that s imilarly to th e co ntemporary minimum dwell ings , the hous es of Skyros isl and, for instance, feature a com m on room that oc cupies mos t of the built s urface (Djelepy, 1 934, 97) . In addition, c onc epts o f order, in the j uxtapo sition of the Athe na N i k e temple with the D e lage Grand - Spo rt (Le Corbusie r, 1923, p. 1 07 ) , and architectura l character , suc h as th e white surfaces and the cubic forms , in the paralle lism of the coas tal town of a Greek island with the Wießen hof and Schönblick urban settlements ( Schu ltze, 19 29 ) , had already been recorde d as i n fl uences of th e Gree k ve rnacular to W est modernity , prior to the fourth meeting of the Congress . In discussing the ‘ event ual emerg ence of a gen ui nely cont empor ary culture ’, Gie d io n had later expres sed the need f or a ‘ commo n language on sim i la r l ine s ’, which would al so be re flecte d on other artistic or scientific disc iplines ( Gied ion, 1949, p . 37). T he abstractnes s of Greek vernacular architecture echoed i n Mode rn movement structures . M ea n wh ile , the characterist ics of Weste rn modernity were refl ected on to several c onstructions in Greece , which sproute d in the early 1930s, namely pub lic schoo ls, sanatoria and factories . 16 Mediterra nean ve r nacu lar chara cteristics have a lso been ex tremely in fluen tial i n formin g the matur e i deolo gy of Le Corbu sier, whos e referen ce s to the Med ite rrane an ve rna cul ar, s uch a s cubi c forms and whit e walls, wa s just as pro minent as the id ea of indust rial st andardisa tion . See: Colquh oun, 2007, p. 148. 17 Note th at Stav ros Mar tino s refer s also to Sta mo Pap adaki’s article for Bâtir jour na l, en titled ‘ Renouveau du vrai cl assicisme . Le Grèce et l’arch itectu re fonc tionnelle ’, in which he j uxt apo se s a pictu re of the r esident ial sett lement of the is land of I os, s hot by László Moh oly - Nagy, with one of Villa F akidis. Maria He lena Maia, Alex andra Cardo so, Alexandr a Trevisan and Joa na Couto, SOUTHERN A RCHI TECTUR ES 270 all the cultures involved”. In s imultaneous, “loca l cultures, with their own cultural values, w ill a ct main ly and funda mentally as the “c rit ical f ilter” of this dispers ed influenc e” ( Almeida, 2005: 71). * The s ame author (1986) also draws our a ttention to the s peech on arch itecture de livered by Carlos Ramo s in 1933, in which the later quote d Emile Schreiber’s statement: “international penetrat ion, national interpretat ion, vo ilà the wh ole secre t of harmony in the world of tomorro w”. Th is affirmation c ould very we ll be considered as a de fin i t io n o f c ritical interna tionali sm ( Almeida, 2 005: 71). I t a lso means that the critica l awareness at the foundation of th is notion dates bac k to, at least, the be ginning o f the 1930s. On t he other ha nd, Tz onis & L efai vre (1 986: 7) p lace th e theoreti cal foundations of th e c ritical regio nalism in an earlier period, that is to say, in the previous decade. I n their opinion, a g limpse of thos e foundations co uld be already caught in Lewis M umfor d’s work, na mely, in his book S ticks and Stones, a Study of Americ an A rchitecture and Civiliz ation (19 24). In this boo k, M umford propose d a proje ct based on the concept of “the interaction between popular culture and i ts place of origin”, i. e. , he apparently defende d the existence of regional architecture. However, the se issues gained theore tical signif icance in the pos t - war time, with Gi ed i on’s (19 54) ref lection s on the mov ement he call ed “the new regi onali sm”. Giedon argued that modern arc hitecture conse rved the mark of its regional or ig in , e ve n in its m o s t int e rn at io nal ele ment. F rom his v iewp oint (195 4: 209 - 211), the coloured horizonta l plans of the Dutch fields and the ve rtical plans of the tradit ional bu ildings’ plain faç ades wou ld exp lain Mo ndrian’s “neutra l forms” or Theo van Doesburg’s abstrac t forms. Similarly, th e works of both Tony Garnier and August P erre t, that are two poss ible examples, are directly base d on French building trad it ion. Gied ion had no do ubt that “the reg ional contribut ions may lead to a un iversal arch itectura l concept.” Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Pro ceedings. Port o, February 19 - 21, 20 15 271 The fol lowi ng year, Paul R icoeur (1955) reflecte d upon globa lisation and ra ised the quest ion “h ow to become m odern and to return to sourc es; how t o reviv e an old, dormant civ ilizati on and take part in universa l civilizat ion” (apud F rampton, 1983: 148) . I n the d efin ition he pro posed of th e c ritical regionalis m , Frampton (1983: 148) draws our attention to the fac t that, in the words o f Ricoeur, “a ‘world culture’ w ill o nly or iginate, throug h a cros s - fertilizat ion betwee n rooted culture, on the one hand, and uni versal civilisat ion on the othe r”, so that “a regional culture must also be a fo rm of world c ulture”. In co ntrast to Frampton, who cons idered this “proposition as paradoxical and impure”, Pedro Vieira de Almeida agreed w ith Ricouer. From the po int of view of Vie ira de Almeida, the onl y mistake of Ricouer’s th eory w as that he didn ’t understand the filte ring ro le that this “roote d culture” c ould play. Vieira de Almeida reminded us that he had already defended the notion of a plural post - moder nit y as ear ly as 1984. This not ion “ would have as conse quence, or as characteristic, the eme rgence of a new assumption of regional values of mode rnity, not only as a propo sal – as e mb raced by critical regionalism – , but also, as a specific read ing fi lter. This filte r would deliberate ly rejec t the cultural hegemonic attitudes repre senting an assumed - but by then already fict ional - c entrality that bo th the modernism and the po st - mode rnism had accepte d without hesitation” (Almeida, 2008: 86). More over, this filter was also called criti cal inte rnationalis m by Vieira de Almeida. * Regar dless of our defi niti on of t he criti cal tool s used or of our ch oice to c onsid er th e de f in it io n of c rit ica l re g io n a l is m a nd c r it ic a l int e rn a t io na l is m a s a v e ry important right fro m the beginning, it assumes c rucial to understand the difficult ies and challe nges that we re posed by the chro nological de limitation of the period under stud y. The field of architect ural culture is a cro ss roads of realities that c an be only understoo d by going back to the previous ce ntury and to the m ultiple paths opened by the first vanguards . Maria He lena Maia, Alex andra Cardo so, Alexandr a Trevisan and Joa na Couto, SOUTHERN A RCHI TECTUR ES 272 Seldom has history witness ed the same s immering of artistic ideas and proposals that charac terized the first decades o f the 20 t h ce nt ur y. M ult ip le movements be li e ving to be ground - breaking and potentially universa l mush roomed ever ywh ere, w ith a n epicenter i n Paris. Moreover , or s hall we say , therefore , it was a ti me c haracterized by wars : the Fi rs t World War, from 1914 - 19 18 ; the O ctober Revol ution of 1917; the Gr eece - Turke y War of 1919 - 1 922; the scars left by the war wi th the USA and the Engl ish Ult imatum that marked the entrance of Spain and Portugal, respective ly, into the 20 th century; and, finally, the e mergence of the to talitarian re gimes that spread everywhere in the 1920s. Thos e times we re dangerous but, in simu ltaneous, st imulating in order to both live in and to ser ve as cas e studies. The presence o f vernacul ar architecture as a recurre nt source of inspiration was less visib le during this time than it had been at the turn of the century or from t he 1930s, but its p resence was , nevertheless, fe lt, as our r esearc h aims to demonstrate . Indeed, we argue that the fi rst three de cades o f the 20 th century were marked by a strong pres ence of the vanguards, in addition to having als o constituted a fertile so il for the res olution of prob lems of cul tural or nationa l ident ity. Vernacular forms p laye d an important ro le in th is proces s, due to the richness of their formal repertory, the co nsoli da ted expe rience of lif esty les they reflect, and also due to the fact they can be identified with some form of o rigi na l pur ity that contrasts with erudite forms. These times al so assisted to the re invention of the house, in the orde r to be come a mo dern and confortable charac te r. Our researc h ends at the beg inning of the 193 0s, when the mod ern m ovement, that had a spe cial a ssoc iati o n with international architecture and the CIAM , become hist orically hegemoni c, l eading to th e present reev alua t ion of the architecture of the time. * We infer an unexpect ed proxim ity between the Portugue se and t he Gree k cases, based on the survey made of the architecture produced during this period in the Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Pro ceedings. Port o, February 19 - 21, 20 15 273 four countries in study. The relation betwee n the Spanish and the Italian cases is less direct than we expe cted initiall y. Nevert heless, we i nfe r the same interest for ve rnacular architec ture, the same search of sol uti ons for sin g le - family houses, the same fascinatio n for traditional forms. Capri, I biza, Ae gina or Algarve gav e the image of a pleasant trad ition to the cons tructors o f the new modern ity. For instance, Capri and I biza became el ect ion places for both artists and intellectua ls. Their lands cape was de picted, and served as cas e study w ithin the debates o n the constitution of a Mediterrane an architecture with M editerranean roots. ( Sabatino 2013: 207). However, this Southern tradition offere d itself to the North that vi s its and absolves it, and motivated its reappeara nce in new architectures, some times combined with its own past. In that per iod, the us e of vernac ular as sourc e of modernity wa s not e xclusive to the South, but can be found everywhere, from Sc andi nav ia to the Mediterranean. Ho wever, the cub ic volumes of the wh itewas hed walls characterist ic of the Southern arc hitecture were an ideal instrument to give an hi stor ical thickness t o the new proposals of a rationalist ar chitecture, thus represe nting a convenient discovery fo r eve rybody. In 1922, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti praised the practic al style of vernac ular architecture of Ca pr i, “for its rationa l rather than p icture sque qua liti es”, classifying it as a futuristic island (S abatino, 2013: 207). In the s ame year, the Port uguese Ant ónio Ferro 1 1 An tónio Ferr o, a jour nalist rela ted to Fu turism, will be the f utur e direc tor of th e the Por tugues e gover nmenta l institu tion Sec retar iado de P ropa ganda Nac ional [S ecreta riat of N ationa l Propaganda]. , described Olhão , in Algarve, as a cubist peasant village (s ee Agare z, 2012: 72). T h is town has frequently been ass ociated with moder nism. In 1934, an Eng lish trave ller wro te that the arc hite cture of Olhão “could give po ints to many a modern young arc hitect priding himself on the fun ctional use o f the mate rials.“ (Go rdon , 1934: 2 12 apud Aga re z, 2012: 70). Maria He lena Maia, Alex andra Cardo so, Alexandr a Trevisan and Joa na Couto, SOUTHERN A RCHI TECTUR ES 274 For M arinetti , the vernac ular architecture of Capri offered beauty and free dom, as it rejecte d “any kind of order remini sce nt of classicism” ( apud Sabatino, 2013: 208). Neverthe less, we argue that the c lassical trad ition was eve ntually always prese nt in of Southe rn architecture at its own r ight or through its vernacular reflex. Figure 1. Beira Alta hous e. Photo publishd in Arquite ctura Popu la r em Po rt ug al. Lis bo a: S ind ica to Na cio nal d os Arquitectos , 1961 This and other sus picions s lowly arose dur ing our study. For e xample, the idea that the sec ular architectures that wer e de fined in Southe rn Europe and Mediterranean wo uld predominantly co rrespond to a poetic of thick walls , in which mass is a determinant element in the pe rception of space. (Almeida, 2010) . As we have already demonstrated, this is the case of Portugal, as conce rns vernacular architecture. (M aia, Cardo so & Leal, 2013) 2 2 We ref er to the project Po pular A rch itecture in Portuga l. A Cr itical Look ( PTDC/ AUR - AQI /099063/2008) that w as ca rried out between 20 10 and 2013. Th is project ex plored tw o express ive paramet ers of arch it ecture: the thickness – that c onfigu res a poetry of thic k w alls or, by c ontrast, a poetry of thin w alls – and the tran sition - space (See: A lmeida, 2010, 2012 an d 2013; Maia , Cardoso an d Leal 2013 ). . Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Pro ceedings. Port o, February 19 - 21, 20 15 275 We further suspec t o f a constant presence of transition - space m o re to the South. This space that “ is neither internal nor exte rnal” is a lways present in Southern architecture, since ant iquity. In t he peristy le, on a private leve l, or in the stoa, on a pub lic leve l, the transitio n - space trans lates an ance stral lifestyle in the Me diterrane an (A lmeida, 2013 [ 1963 ]: 92). Vieira de Almeida, who c reated this concept, quote d in thi s respec t Eglo Benincasa, who exp lained that the re latio n with the external is ve ry differe nt between N orth and So uth, correspo nding to distinct lifesty les. Fo r the So uthern man, l ife in the ope n air do esn’t trans late the nec essity of contac t with nature that is essential furth er N orth. In the South the life in the open are air evolves “in an open space prote cted from the Sumer sun and the Winter wind, we can call it as se mi - open”. Thus , from his point of view, “a prob lem that should be of great significance in Southe rn architecture is to keep the maximal intimacy in ope n environme nts.” (B enincas a apud A lme ida, 201 3 [196 3]: 92) . Figure 2. Dimit ri s Piki oni s, Acrop oli s pa ths These are the spac es, defined as transition - s pace by Vieira de Almeida that came up in a great variety of forms, translating the richness of an ancestral lifestyle in the South. Maria He lena Maia, Alex andra Cardo so, Alexandr a Trevisan and Joa na Couto, SOUTHERN A RCHI TECTUR ES 276 This was perce ived by the Ital ian archit ects, who fo und the fundaments of modernity in the com bination of the verna cular Mediterrane ità with the c la ss ica G recità (se e: Sa batino , 2013: 208) . Peristyles, te rraces, pergolas and trel lis are co nnected to porticos , and teach a vernacular lesso n full o f classica l references. In orde r to illustrate the point, see the work of the Portuguese architect Raúl L ino that is centered on the middle cl as s single - family house. Framed by the Br it is h dome stic revival and by its German vers ion, this work was to tally modern at the time. But Lino’ s hous es includes, in this modern ity, the characte ristics of an architecture of l ight and sun, of th ick walls, transitio n - space and trad itional materials such as az ulejo [glazed tile] he learnt during h is trips in Southern Portugal. Figure 3. R aul Li no, Cy press house, Si ntra, Portugal © Ped ro Vie ir a d e A lme ida Als o e xe m pla ry in th is res pesct is the work of Aristóteli s Zachos , a contemporary architect to Lino, who re drew architectures that he wanted Greek, tryi ng to ignore, perhaps becaus e of a patriotism feeling that vernacular Greek also assimilated the Otto man trad ition in its tota lity. Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Pro ceedings. Port o, February 19 - 21, 20 15 277 Mode rn Portuguese house , Catalan ho use and Greek h ouse wer e invented at the beginning of a very nationalist c entury. T he aim was to unders tand the tradicional dwel ling fo rms in order to reinvent s ingle familly ho use based on them. In the 1930s, the de bate in Ita ly focus ed on the c lassical - vernacular Mediterranean patio - house . This house type, characteristic of t he Me diterranean region since Anc ient Antiquity, “proved to be adaptable to the functional requirements of modern dwe lling, but it also facilitated a typ ical Mediterranean lifestyle that invo lved spe nding part of the day in the ope n air” (Sabatino, 2013: 201). That is to say , it re sponds to the nece ssity of an external existence of controlled intimacy. Figure 4. Luig i F igin i an d G ino P o llini, Villa - St udio for an artist, Milan, V Tr i ennale, 1933 . Published i n Alber to Sart ori s, Ency cl op édi e d e l ’ arch i tect ure n ou vel l e, v ol . 1, Milan, Hoe pl i , 1948 and l ater in Sabatino, 2013. In these years, in Italy, the casa - patio solved apparently the si ng le - family housing problem for general satisfact ion: of the rationa list architects that saw in it “an e xpression of effec tive planning wi th limited s pace”; of the nationalists and of the histor icists that interpreted it as “an express ion of Italianità that could be flaunted to the re st of the world” (Sabatino, 2013: 201). Maria He lena Maia, Alex andra Cardo so, Alexandr a Trevisan and Joa na Couto, SOUTHERN A RCHI TECTUR ES 278 Piki on i s, i n Greece, w ho belon ged also to th e 1930 ’s generati on, was closel y related to vernacular architecture, wh ich he cons idered as expressiveness o f thick walls , the experi ence s of t ransition - spaces, the intensity o f the clear - dark effects of shading elements that recall a lifesty le with a stro ng Southe rn character. At this stage of our w ork, we are st ill not sure about the existen ce o f a Southern architecture. Howe ver, we argue that ther e exists a So uthern li festyle. Indeed, we are not completely sure abo ut the existence of the So uth, but any way, it seems to u s a good i nventi on. Ackn owledgments This wo rk was conducte d under the proje ct S out hern M od ern is ms ( EX P L/C PC - HAT/0191/2013), f unded by nationa l funds thro ugh FCT unde r Projec t 3599 - Pr om oti n g the R ese a rc h Produc ti on, Tec hnological Dev elopme nt and Innov ation. References Ag arez, Ri cardo ( 20 13) . Vern a cul a r, con se rvat i ve, m ode rni st: th e un com fo rtab l e ‘zon e 6’ of th e P ort ug ues e f ol k a rchi t ectu re sur ve y (1 95 5 - 1961) in To and Fr o: Moder nism and Vern acu la r Ar ch it ectu re. Edited by Joana Cunh a Leal, Mar i a Hel ena Maia and Al exandra Card oso . P ort o: CEA A Almeida, Pe dr o Vieira de (1986). Ca rlos Ramos - U ma Estra t égi a de In t erv ençã o i n Carl os R am os. E xpo siçã o retr osp ectiv a d a sua o bra . Lisboa: Funda ção C alouste Gulbenkian, 1986 Almeida, Pe dr o Vieira de (2005). Da Te oria . Oi to liç ões. Porto : C EAA Almeida, Pe dr o Vieira de (2010). D ois P a râm etr os d e A rq uit ectu ra Po st os em Su rdi na. O pro p ósito de u ma investigação. Porto: CEAA , Edi ções Ca sei ra s/1 4 Almeida, Pe dr o Vieira de (2012). D ois P a râm etr os d e A rq uit ectu ra Po st os em Su rdi na. Leit ura crí tic a d o Inq uér it o à a rqu it ectu ra r egion al. Cad ern o 1 . Po rto : C EAA, Edições Casei ra s/1 6 Alm e ida, Pe dr o V ieir a d e ( 2013). A Noçã o de Espe ssura na L inguagem Arq uite ctó nica . Port o: C EA A, Edi çõ es C asei ra s/1 9 Almeida, Pe dr o Vieira de (2013). D ois P a râm etr os d e A rq uit ectu ra Po st os em Su rdi na. Leit ura crí tic a d o Inq uér it o à a rqu it ectu ra r egion al. Cad ern o 2 . Po rto: CEAA, Ed ições Casei ra s/1 7 Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Pro ceedings. Port o, February 19 - 21, 20 15 279 Almeida, Pe dr o Vieira de (2013[1963]). Ensaio s obre o e spaço da a rquite ctura . Port o: CEAA Frampto n, K enne th (1983). P r ospec ts for a Critica l Regionalism, Persp e cta , Vol . 20 , p. 147 - 162 Frampto n, K enne th (1983). T o wards a Critical Regionali sm: S ix points f or an architecture of resi st ance i n Anti- Aesthe tic. Essays o n P ostmoder n Culture. E di ted by H al Fos ter. Seat tl e: Bay P re ss Giedion, Sigfr i ed (2007 [1954]). The N ew Regionali sm in Architectur al Regionalism. Coll ect ed Writ in gs on Pl ace, Id en tity, Moder nity and Tr adition . Edited by Vicent Canizaro. New Yo rk: Pri n ceton A rch it ectu ral P ress Maia, Maria Helena; Caldoso, Alexandra; Leal, Joana Cunh a (2013). D oi s Pa râm et ros d e Arquite ctura Postos em Surdina. Le itura crí tica do Inqué rito à arquitectu ra r egi onal . Cad ern o 3. Po rto: C EAA , Edi ções Ca sei ra s/1 8 Maia, Maria Helena; Caldoso, Alexandra; Leal, Joana Cunh a (2013). D oi s Pa râm et ros d e Arq ui tect ura Po stos e m Su rdin a. L ei tu ra c rít ica do I nq uéri t o à a rqu it ect ura reg ion al. Cad ern o 4. Po rto: CEAA , Edi ç ões C as ei ras/ 19 Sabatino , Michelange lo (2013). T oward a Regionali st Mo dernism. Ital ian Arc hi tec ture and the v ernacular i n Reg io na lis m an d Mod erni ty. A rch it ectu re in W est ern E urop e 1 914 - 1940. E di ted by Liam Me ganck, L i nda Van Stantvo o rt and Ja n De Maeyer.Le uve n: Leuv en Uni versi ta ry P re ss T zo nis , A lex ; L efa ivr e, Liane (1 986 ). El r e gio na lis mo cr ític o y la a rq uite ct ur a es pa ñola actual, A&V (Regionalismo ) , Mad ri d Tzonis, A lexande r; Lefaivre , Liane (1981). The grid and the pathway. A n introduc ti on to th e wo rk of Di mitris and Suzana Antonakakis, Architekto nika th emata. Arch it ectu re in Gre ece , 15, Athens. Aut hors iden tif ication Alex an dr a C ard os o . A rch it ect (F AU P, 19 94 ). I nt egrat ed r esear ch er a n d b oard mem b er of Centro de Estudos Arnaldo Araújo (CEAA), R &D unit 4041 (FCT); Dire ctor of CEAA (2003 - 2010). Resea rch er of th e p roj ect s: The "Popul ar Archit ectur e in Po rtugal." A Critica l Look ( 2010 - 2013 ); So uthern Mod ernisms ( 2014 - 2015 ); P h otogr aphy, Mo dern Arch it ectu re an d t he " Es cola d o Port o" : In t erp re ta tion s on Te ófil o R eg o Arc hi ve ( 2014 - 2014 ), and Por tu guese Partic ipation in CIAM X (2014). Last re lated publications, include the boo ks To and Fro: Moder n ism and Vernac ular Arc h itecture ( ed.) and Doi s Par âm et ro s de Arq ui t ectu ra Po stos em Su rdi n a. Lei t ura crí tica d o Inq uéri t o à a rqu i tectu ra reg i ona l . Cad ern os 3 an d 4 (all with M.H. Maia and J.C. Lea l, 2013). Alex an dr a Tr evi san . Graduate ( F LUP , 1986) and MSc in History of Art ( FLUP , 1996) and PhD in Arc hitecture (ETSA/UVa, 2 013) with the thes is Int erna tiona l Inf l uenc es in Opo rt o Mod ern A rchi t ec tu re b etwe en 1 92 6 an d 19 56 . Assi st an t Pr of ess or/T h eory & Hist ory D epart m ent at E SAP (since 1986) te a ching History of Modern Arch it ectu re (A rchitec tu re MA) and Histor y of Art, amo ng othe r curric ula r uni tie s. Res ear che r of th e A rch it ectu ral Studies group of Ce ntro de Estudos Ar na ldo de Ar aújo (FCT uRD 4041). Currently is PI of the res e arc h pro ject Photography , Modern Maria J osé de Azevedo Ma rcondes , MODERNISM IN LATIN AMERICA: Betwee n the two s ide s of the Atlantic 286 Thus, Warchavc hik woul d internationa lly modernize Brazil ian architecture and provide "Braz ilian characte ristics to bu ildin g designs, as state d by Fe rraz (1965), by means of traditional cons truction elements , and above all, the gardens designed by M ina Klabin, in wh ich cact i prevailed: such as the c ereus ; as well as other tropical landsc ape families: Brazilian fire tre e, agaves, dracae nas . city of Rio de Jan eiro. Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 287 The co nfluence takes place through the c ultural reperto ire that links h im to his training and European pro fessional practic e and doctrinal theoretical links with Le Corbus ier. In 1930 , Le C or busier assigned him as a Latin American represe ntative i n the CIA M - International Congres s of Modern Architecture . T he recommendation is wide ly documente d by Ferraz (1965) during a me eting between Le Corbusier and several architec ts in the Warchavch ik Res idence on Santa Cruz Stree t. For the I II CIAM, in Brus sels, Warchavchik drafted a Repo rt (1931 ) on the modern architecture situat ion in Braz il and South A merica 5 . Figure 1 . M ode rnist H ouse Santa Cruz and its garden s, S ão Paulo, Bra zil ,1928 . S ourc e: R ev ue Ilu st raç ão Bra si l ei ra , 1929 The Re sid enc es of Juan O' Gorm an an d thei r gard ens: u niver sali sm and local tr adition s in Me xico Cecil O'Gorman's Residence, designed by Juan O'Gorman, in 1 9 29, is considered the f irst moder nisti c resi dence i n Mexico C ity, foll owed by the Resi dence of Edmund O'Gorman, also in 1929, and the s tudio residence s of Diogo Riv iera and Frida Kahlo, des igned in 1931 and 1932, respe ctively; all de signed by the aforementioned archite ct and artist. D iego Rivera and Frida K aho's Studi o Re sid ences are conti guous to C ecil 's Residence, i n San Angel , south o f Mex ico Cit y 7 5 Warchavchik’s rep ort was draft ed after t he IV Pan - American Congre ss of Ar chitectu re, h eld in R io de Jan ei ro in 1930. This Congress w as held after L e Corbu sier came to Argen t in a, Uruguay an d Brazil. Warchavchik r eported that "Recentl y, a Pan - American Congre ss was held in Rio d e Janeiro , an d I wa s able to stu dy the S outh A meri can archit ecture si tuation. (Warchavchi k, 1931p. 1 78 - 179 origin ally published in Cahiers d’ Art, 1931). . Maria J osé de Azevedo Ma rcondes , MODERNISM IN LATIN AMERICA: Betwee n the two s ide s of the Atlantic 288 Juan O'Gorman was the younge st member of the Mexican muralist generat ion, in c lu ding Di ego River a, José Cl emente O ro zco an d Davi d A. Siquer os (G onzal es Lobo , 2008, Arqu ine, O ' Gorman Guide). He graduated in architecture at the Universidad Nac ional Autóno ma of Me xico in 1925 6 O'Gorman was a pionee r in modern architecture in Me xico, as well as in the criticism o f this functiona list and rat ional nature o f architect ure, ant icipat ing narratives and quest ioning modern istic architecture . Gonzales L obo po ints out in the O'Gorman Guide that he co nsidered architecture "an artistic e xpression that is directly re lated to geography and h istory of the p lace where it take s place. Thus, archi tecture beco mes a harmonic instrument be tween man and nature, reflecting on the shape and colour of the surroundings where the work is execute d (Gonzales Lobo , Carlos, O'Gorman Gui de, Arqu ine, 2008) . 8 The first residence designed by Juan O'Gorman was for h is famil y me mbers, C ecil O'Gorm an’s re sidence, recentl y restored (com pleti on in 20 13) by Vi ctor Ji menez. In this res idence he so ught to implement the functiona list and rat ionalist principles of construc tion and aesthe tic principles. To h im, architecture "i s a functional art with potential for soc ial transformation, conce pts that will be im plement ed i n hi s role as Di rector of Educa tion i n the i mplementa tion of school s in scale during the Post - Revolutionary go vernment. Edward Burian states that Juan O'Gorman had co ntact with Le Corbusier’s wri tings in 1924, which was crucial to his arch itectural educ at ion. ( BU RIA N, 2005 ) in h is a rt ic le , M o de r nit y and Nationalism: Juan O’ Gorman and Post - Revol uti onary A rchitectu re in Méxi co 1920 - 1960. . The wo rk of Juan O'Gorman has been analysed from the pe rspective of a dichotomy between the avant - garde traditions and the Mexican regiona list identity betwee n the two phas es cited earlie r. 6 Juan O’Gorman early in his career , he work ed with th e arch itects J osé Villagr an a nd Carlos Obregón, but soon he bega n an in dependent career, havin g bu ilt the f irst mode rnistic resid ences in Mex ico and s ever al other w orks; a mong them , 33 public sc hools for the P ost - R evolu tiona ry Govern ment, of wh i ch he was a member, in which he used th e standar dization of c onstru ctive elemen ts to redu ce cons truc tion cost s a nd time. Su c h a produ ction, between 1928 a nd 1936, is cha racterized by a rational ist and fu nctionalist arch i tectu ral phase. Between 1945 an d 1956 he design ed maj or works in an organ ic and region alist arch itectur al vis ion, sta nding ou t among s uc h works ar e his hom e in S a n Jerón imo, in 1 953; a nd the ston e mosaic mu ral of the Cen tral Librar y of the U niv ersity C ity, in 19 49. Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 289 Cosmopo li tan ism and nativism in Lat in America, to use Octavio Paz’ s words (Burian, 200 5), i n the work of Juan O' Gorman we can learn; howeve r, since his rationalistic phase and even the inaugural phase of mode rnism with the design and work of Cecil O'Gorman’s home. The Garden of cacti illustrates this perspec tive, albeit deployed in a linear and symmetrical fo rm in the re sidential property. The use of strong colours also indicates the search fo r the Mexican identity, and s imultaneously, artist ic expression and universa l architectura l, more precisely Europe an. The Stud io Resi dence of D iego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, designed and built betwe en 1929 and 1931, in Mexico C ity, by Juan O  Gorman had high visibility as the first modernist building in Mexico , because the Residence of Cec il O'Gorman was destroyed and, having been bought by INBA - Nationa l Insti tute of Fine Arts and turne d into a museum dedicated to artistic wo rks, personal items and docume nts by both artists Consisting of two ide ntical buildings, f orming the couple's s tudios, Juan O  Gorman’s des ign, at the end of the 1920s, introduced the rationa list conce pt with the Corbus ier influence and elements o f local trad ition. The building was conce ived wi th stra ight lines without a ny ornamentat ion, juxtaposing th is architectural conc ept is the use of strong colours and light and shado ws, forming an amalgam between univers alism and loc al trad itions 7 7 Th e restoration of this garden, along with the stu dios’, took eight yea rs of in vestigat ion by th e Nation al In stitute of F ine Arts , and was completed in 1995 (s tudios) an d 2013 (Cec i l O'Gorm an residenc e). In the cas e of the garden s, cacti w ere planted accordin g to the origi nal design, because the wor ks w ere widely docum ented thr o ugh o ut its h i story, and a drain age system was dev eloped to c ons t antly keep the soil dry , as before. . Maria J osé de Azevedo Ma rcondes , MODERNISM IN LATIN AMERICA: Betwee n the two s ide s of the Atlantic 290 Figure 2 . Diego River a and Frida Ka ho's Studi o Re si dence s and Th ei r gard ens, 1932 Mexi co, Ci t y, Mexi co . Sou rc e: P hot o Noel l e Gra ss , Lou i se , 2011 When Diego Rivera vis ited the res idence designed by O'Gorma n, he decided to have his studio on t he property, des igned under the same principles. D iego Rivera was a lready a n iconic f igure for the artist ic express ion betwe en Europe an avant - garde and nationalism 8 . Bo s i not e s that "Of the Mexi can mura lists, Siq u er os , Rivera and Orozco, the criti c s s aid how much they knew how to fus e motifs of nat ional h istory with forma l sugges tions of Cubism an d Express ionism ” (Bosi , 200 8 ) . Schwatz a lso cons iders that in the issue of nationalism/cos mopolitanism, D iego R ivera’s image cou ld not b e ignored due to his importance in the fine arts. His tra ining was influenced by European avant - garde, where he lived fo r fifteen years: from 1907 to 1 921, a de cade in Paris at the height of Cubism. His product ion is notoriously cubist in its in it ia l p ha s e . Upon returning to Mexico, he de dicated to mura lism - politically engaged art with a social comm itment to h is art, lead ing him to incorporate elements of the Mexican tradit ions and so cio - political re ality in his murals. 8 Diego River a's 1915 w ork, Zapatist a Landscape - The Gu errilla 8 , is a cubis t painting . "It s hows a Mex ican pea sant’s hat hangin g on a woode n crate, behind a rifle. P ainted w ithou t any prelim ina ry stud y, i n m y stud i o in Par is, it is pr obably the most f aithf ul expr ession of the Mexica n atmosph ere that I have ever mana ged to captur e Rivera , Diego, apu d O Modernismo e a busca de raízes, in ADES, Da wn ( org .) Arte na Am érica Latina: A era Moderna, 1820 - 1980, São Paulo: Cosac Nai fy, 1999. Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 291 In Rivera’s studio des ign, architect J uan O  Gorman included pink colours ( Diego Rivera’s studio) and b lue (Frida Kahlo’ s studio) and intense greens of the cacti o n the property. 9 Le Corbusier’s presenc e in Lat in Amer ica, betwe en the 1920s a nd 1930s, u p to the 1950s has been emphatica lly researc hed; the refore, the fl o w of ideas in modernistic arch itectural pro jec ts in the 1 920s is re sonated in the histor iography. However, the design of areas o utsi de the building, with garde n configuration using plants of the same botanical family gives new meaning to these modernistic des igns, with the e mphatic us e of tropica l flora, indicat ing a proper modernity in Lat in American arch itecture. We have found that O  Go rman h imself des igned the res idence’s gardens. Despite the d iversity of co untries in Lat in A merica, there is converge nce and the exi stence of spec i ficiti es in common in th e develop ment of i ts lan dscape architecture througho ut its history. The pers pective of creating a re pertoire and internal art iculations for Latin American countries s tands as a f undamental and rich approach in poss ibilit ies for a bette r understanding of the pr oduction proce ss and the complet ion of proj ects . Th e Resid ences of Victoria O ’C ampo and th eir Gardens: the plan t of Americ a The di mensi on of the modern movemen t i n Arge ntinian architecture is relativized by various authors, c ons idered to be incipie nt when compared to the Euro pean modern movement, and eve n in other Latin American co untries. As s tated by architect Francisco Lie nur (1986 ) in an arti c le in Summa Ma gazine, "There is no doubt that the radicalism ach ieved by our avant - garde is highly attenuated when compared to the virulence established in Euro pe." Lienur points out certain popular works in the 1930s, and the reside nce de signed by Albe rto Preb isch, als o in 1930, and by A lejandro Bustillo for V icto ria O’Campo in 1931, in d ic a t iv e o f t he implementation of an incipient movement of mo dern architec ture in the c ountry 9 9 Th is infor mation w as obtaine d on a visit to the M useu m Fr ida Kahlo a nd Diego Riv era, in 2005, given by the employees of the mus eum . Maria J osé de Azevedo Ma rcondes , MODERNISM IN LATIN AMERICA: Betwee n the two s ide s of the Atlantic 292 In an article introduc ing modern arc hitecture in Argent ina, author Jo rge R amos ( 2011) 10 c ons iders that in Le Corbus ier’s view - focused on a valu ation of Eurocentric modernit y, the modern archit ecture movement was incipient in t h is country 10 Paradoxica lly, Le Corbusier’s prese nce in Argentina was qui t e emphasized; a country in South Ameri can, w h ich has wo rks designed by this arc hitect. During his vis its to Argent ina in the late 1920s and ear ly 1930s, he establ ished close contact with e ssayist Victor ia O’Campo. In 1929, Le Corbus ier we nt to Argentina as a guest of the "Asoc iaci ó n Amigos de l Art, Ami go s de la Ciudad" and by Victoria O’Campo to give lectures, which were later published in the book, "Precisions sur un é tat de “Precis ions sur un état prese nte de l’architecture et de l’urbanisme” 11 . Le Corbusier des igned a residence fo r Victoria, but the work was not materialized. Howe ver, the essayist, a pro minent figure in the cultural environment of Buenos Aires at that time, built a modernistic residence in Palermo Chico in 1928, with another architect, A lejandro B ustillo, se eking to incorporate Corbus ier’s ideas and formal repe rtoire, with cubic volumes, white facades and no ornaments. Victoria O’Campo had a prom inent role in the renewal of the arts s cene in Buenos Aires. She founde d and di re cted the antho logical Sur Magazine in 193 1 , with Waldo Frank, Maria R osa Olivier and Eduardo Mallet. Sur Magaz ine was the precurso r of the avant - garde magaz ines in the c ity in the 1920s, wh ich assumed an aesthetic co smopolitanism; the magaz ine’s name was sugg es ted by Ortega and Gasset. 10 Jorge Ramo s , h owever , t hrough out the article, he extended this Corbu sier perspectiv e, anal ysi ng t he va rious a rchitec tural con cepts of divers e influ ences, highlig htin g region al rat iona lis m, of a n ew space f or peripheral debat e and discus sion of modernity , such as the Casas Brancas (wh ite houses) th at emerged at the end of the 1950s, in which he ques t ioned t he orth odox ration alism . Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 293 Berj man (2007) 12 In Palermo Ch ico, arc hitect Alej andro Bustillo designed a cubist building w ith pure volumes. Author Berj man states that "Victor ia also sought this effect in her gardens," co ntrasting the simplicity of pur e volumes with the use of sculptural and volumetr ic plants suc h as cacti. Th is garden made the trans ition between the residence’ s rationalist space and the "green surro undings from another dimension and style: the pictures que sty le of Charles T hays" (BERJ MAN, 2007, p. 244), the green nei ghbourho od designe d by Thays in 1912 , c alled P ark Neig hbourhood . an a lys e d V ictoria O’C ampo’ s modern gardens in the book La Victori a de los J ardines , emphasizing th e pres ence of cac ti in these garde ns, noting that Victoria so ught to break with the ideology of French fo rmalistic gardens in Buenos A ires. Victoria O’Campo de scribes the vege tation: (... ) The emb lem of the resi dence, th e own er’s coat of ar ms, i s the ca ctus. Cactus is America’s es sential flower: a prickly and powerful exube rance that, under the trop ical sun and over the squalor of the de sert, stands out and expl odes in t he bl oomi ng of colou rs (FR ANK, 195 0 , p . 25 ) 13 The re sidence in Palermo Chico, current ly owned by the National Arts Fund, was transformed into a Cultural Ce ntre, afte r be ing restore d incorporating c hanges made over time by Victoria (up to the 1940’s) . The garden was restored based on the init ial plan ou tlined by V ictoria O C ampo, documente d in the book about Alejandro Bus tillo . 14 . Maria J osé de Azevedo Ma rcondes , MODERNISM IN LATIN AMERICA: Betwee n the two s ide s of the Atlantic 294 Figure 3. R esi den c e of V i ctori a Oca mpo, and th ei r gard en Pal erm o Chi co, Bu eno s Ai re s Ci t y , 1928. Sou rce: Phot o: T he Author, 2014 Fin al Cons ider ations Luis Pérez - Oramas, art critic and curator, indicated in the catalogue o f the 30th Biennial of S ao Paulo that, "Every word has an image as imminence, which serves a s the foun dati on; every image has a word as im minenc e, which serves as resonan ce" (Pér ez - Oramas, 201 2) 15 The analysis of the thre e works o f moderni st arch itecture are inserted in the debate about the updati n g of art and arc hitecture with international aesthet ic express ions and the s earch for a nat ional ident ity, in wh ich the utopian paint ing by Torres - Garc í a "Nosso N orte é o Sul" (Our North is th e South), 1 933, . I be lieve that the images of the first designs of t he modernist ic residence s in Latin Amer ica, and the ir gardens, ec ho the pendula moveme nt betwee n nationalism and internation a lis m in La t in American with all intensity and co mplexity, indicat ing the dialog ue betwee n both sid es o f the Atl antic. Southe rn Moder nisms: cr itical stanc es thro ugh regiona l appropri ations Conferen ce Procee dings. P or to , Feb ruar y 19 - 21, 2 015 295 demonstrate s the compl e xity of the limits between national and internationa l, in t he three c ountries analysed 11 Thus, this article aims to explore the imminence of the images in these fi rs t residences and their modernist ic garde ns i n Latin America , in which Warchavchic, Juan O'Gorman and V ictor ia O’Campo , thro ugh the design o f Pedro Botazzini and architect Alejandro B ustillo, undoubted ly sought to im p le me n t, in L at in A m er ic a , the so - c a lle d " ne w s p ir i t" in t he a es t he t ic a nd id e o lo g ic a l f ie ld , and the attempts of "cul tural roo ting ". In fact , t he g arden s of the Modernistic Hous e (Jardim da C asa M odernista) becomes r elev ant as the record of a dialogue made o f re - i nt erpre tations and adaptations betwe en the Lat in American p roduction centre s , re sulting from the flow of ideas in the 19 20 s and 19 30 s . M in a K lab in ’ s work is contemporary to the garde n designed and exec uted for Juan O'Go rman's modernistic residence , betwe en 1928 and 1931, in Me xico City; as well as the gardens de signed and execut ed for V ic t o r ia O’Campo ’s residences, in Argent ina, respec tively in M ar del Pla t a by Pedro Bo tazzini and Pal erm o Chico, Buenos Ai res, by architect A lejandro Bustillo, also in the 1920 s . In these garde ns, the cacti, f rom the Cac taceae fa m ily , t yp ic a l ly tro pic al, are used in c is i ve ly , co ntrasting with the vegetation of that per iod in Latin America. T he h ist o r ic mo de rnistic garden by Mina Klabin in the Modernistic res idence s of Gregori Warchavch ik , F rida Kahlo and Diego R ivera designed by Juan O  Gorman and in Victoria O’ Campo resi dences - has a documentary value, for documenting inaugural gardens a nd residence s of modernism in these countries and, for foster in g a d ia lo g ue , w h ic h in c lu d e d archite cture and the gard ens and had the characterist ics of int ernationalism or un ive rsalism of art istic e xpression , and nationalism wit h underlying values of the local cul t ures, fro m the sec ond d ecad e of the twentieth ce ntury. The mod ernistic resi d ence de sig n s with outdoor s pace s with cact i in S ã o P au lo , Buenos Ai re s, Mar del Plata and Mexico City rec ord the fl ow of ideas in modern architecture on the continent in the 1920 s , g iv in g these projec ts a uni que 11 Th e analys is of the th ree works of mod ernist ar chitec ture is s et in th e debate o n a rts a nd arc hitectur e update w ith intern ation al aes thetic ex pr ession s and th e searc h for a n ational iden tity, in w hich the u topianism paintin g by T orre s- García "No sso Norte é o Sul", 1933 shows t he boun daries c ompl exity be tween nationa l and in tern ational. Jor ge Palinhos , MODERNISM A ND THE P OR T UG U ES E T EATRO DE R EVI S TA 302 depended more on public support or state financing. As was the sit u at io n of theatre. In fact, Mo dernist theatre to ok a long time to install itse lf in Portugal, but its pi oneers started to wo rk in one of the most beloved and t raditi onal Portuguese theatre forms – Te atro de Re vista. Teatro de Revista «T eatro de Revista», also called «Rev ista à Portugue sa» is a popular P ortuguese form of a satirical s ocio - polit ical theatre, which str ives to read a nd reenact s ome of the most po pular, we ll - known and contro versial current a ffairs and e vents of a society. Its be ginni ngs can be found i n France in the end of the XVIII century. Amidst the turmo il of the French cris is and revolution, theatre b ecame a popular tool to inform and reflect about the e vents taking place, so a spe cific type of theatre appeare d, the revue d e f in d’ année (Pa vão do s Sant os, 2000: 2) . I t was used to te ll , sho w and comment on the mai n po litica l and social events of the previous year. Combining song, hu mor, and c urrent affairs became a popular hit and quickly spread across Euro pe. Portugal was not an e xception, and, after the revue arrived in Port ugal in the middle of X IX century, with the first one be ing, accord ing t o Luiz Fr anci sco Rebell o “Li sboa em 1 850” (“ L is bon i n 1850 ), the revu e de l a année qui c kly sto pped being jus t an annual event, but became a commercially succe ssful enterpr ise, that happene d multiple times a year, through seve ral productions . Teatro de Revista w as also the first the atrical art form to welcom e the first modernist artists in the atre in Portuga l. Even if Modernism, in Portug al, was at first welcomed by a small c lique of art ists, mos t of them w ith ties to Franc e, their ideas and wo rks we re mostly rej ecte d at first, namely in th eatre. It is well - known that Orpheu, the most si gn ificant mode rnist magazine of the ti me was a t first regarded as an “insanity” and a small success mostly for scandalous reasons , not for any real apprec iation of the audience. [Document text truncated for crawler view.]