In architecture, as in much of the rest of its culture, Latin
America offers at once a coherent regional ethos and great
national individuality. The common history, common role 
in the world, and common destiny architects probably face 
justify their efforts to create a continental identity in the 
major countries of Latin America.

    
Latin American Architecture profiles architects from six of
the major countries: Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Mexico,
Uruguay, and Venezuela "six voices speaking" for the region. 
The essays capture the political and social changes that have 
altered the face of Latin American countries and show how these
architects continually attempt to balance the old with the new,
intimating at the same time the continuity and cultivation of a
tradition so persistent in Latin American architecture. In doing 
so, the artists reveal the two major schools of development: 
minimalist and tectonic tradition.

    
This handsomely illustrated book focuses on prominent figures 
in Latin American architecture. A critic from each country 
profiles the work of a representative architect of that nation:
Colombia’s Rogelio Salmona, Mexico’s Ricardo Legorreta,
Venezuela’s Jesús Tenreiro-Degwitz, Uruguay’s Eladio Dieste,
Chile’s Christian De Groote, and Argentina’s Clorindo Testa.
 
    
Taken together, the studies in this volume correct an imbalanced
treatment of the region’s architecture at the hands of recent
international critics, who lauded Latin America as the proving 
ground of modernism in the late 1940s but then quickly lost
interest.

    
A refreshing look at some less-famous architects, whose skill is 
equal to if not greater than that of some stars of the "developed
world," Latin American Architecture provides an ideal
introduction for the architecture student or anyone else interested 
in architecture as a reflection of culture.

________________________________________________________


KENNETH FRAMPTON is Ware Professor of Architecture at 
Columbia University in New York City. MALCOLM QUANTRILL 
is Distinguished Professor of Architecture at Texas A&M 
University, College Station.


Number Five: Studies in Architecture and Culture