terça-feira, 16 de março de 2010

The Modern Architecture of Curitiba


The idea for the posts that I will publish in the coming days on Modern Architecture in Curitiba, came after I have bought and read the book of Prof.. Salvador Gnoato "Arquitetura do Movimento Moderno em Curitiba” (Architecture of the Modern Movement in Curitiba - Travessa dos Editores, 2009), a book that I highly recommend due to the volume and quality of information, allowing readers to better understand Curitiba in which we live and how the hand of these professionals have the ability to affect the landscape and the way we relate to the city.

My proposal here is to present a short introduction to the Modern Movement in architecture and in the following posts, present a short summary of the work and lives of eight Civil Engineers (or Architects without architecture school, as quoted in the book), which helped to consolidate the ideas of the Modernist Movement in Curitiba. Their names are, in the same order that they appear in the book, Frederico Kirchgässner, Vilanova Artigas, Ayrton "Lolo" Cornelsen, Elgson Ribeiro Gomes, Jaime Wasserman, Leo Linzmeyer, Romeo Paulo da Costa and Rubens Meister, all born or raised in Curitiba. Professor Salvador kindly allowed me to use his book as the source for the texts to be published.

Other architects and engineers also left their modernist mark in Curitiba, including buildings that were object of posts on this blog, such as the Civic Center, the Headquarters of the UFPR, the Colégio Estadual do Paraná and many other buildings throughout city.

The Modern architecture is a generic name for a set of architectural schools and movements that have come to characterize the architecture produced during much of the twentieth century (especially the period between the decades of 10 and 50), inserted into the artistic and cultural context of modernism.

The features of the modern architecture can be found in sources as diverse as the Bauhaus in Germany, Le Corbusier in France, Frank Lloyd Wright in the U.S., Russian Constructivists, some linked to school Vuthemas, among many others.

One of the basic principles of modernism was to renew the architecture and reject all the previous architecture movements, mainly the architecture of the nineteenth century expressed by the eclecticism. The break with history was part of the discourse of some modern architects as Le Corbusier and Adolf Loos. The main goal of the modernism is the rejection of historical styles especially for what they believed to be a devotion to beauty. With the title of “Ornament is a Crime” (1908) an essay by Adolf Loos, criticizes what he believed was an architecture concerned with the superfluous and superficial. The modernism saw the ornament as an enemy to be fought.

Um comentário:

  1. Interesting idea. I will be back to read more about the engineers and architects.

    ResponderExcluir