LATIN AMERICAN MODERNISM

There is a great show at MOMA in NYC right now. Titled Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955 – 1980, it is an eye opening look at the unheralded modernism that was built mid century. It is a fantastic assembly of drawings, models and photographs of work by architects that I of course had not heard of.

Now when I see shows like this my overriding goal is to see if there are any Transparent Drawings on the walls. And I did find this one example, shown above. The drawing was by the architect Lina Bo Bardi, who was Brazilian.

Although it does not show the holistic form making and enclosure that we are looking for and used to. There is a transparency about it. You get a very rough sense about the forms of the tall buildings. You get a sense about how the tower on the right integrated with the base fabric shown in red. The drawing is more or less an axonometric. And there is an attempt to give tones to the planes of the various architectural elements. So it has by definition most of the ingredients of a Transparent Drawing.  Although it does fall short.

But I tell you, given that this show spanned a very large segment of the 6th floor at MOMA, this really was the only drawing that had any transparency whatsoever.  The lowish quality photo above is simply what I snapped with my phone.

And I will also tell you that MOMA continues to feel like a shopping mall. This has to be because of the large void in the middle of the building. Shopping malls and shopping arcades always create the void in the middle. MOMA just never feels comfortable or elegant. The vertical circulation seems like an afterthought. Compare this experience with say a Renzo Piano museum addition, and the difference is nearly night and day.