Supersudaca Reports#1 Final08

8/13/2019 Supersudaca Reports#1 Final08

1/13

Supersudaca

Reports

#1Its a Superudaca channel of comunication.

In this edition:

LA COLLECTIVE,Latin America parallel history as occidents laboratory backlash.

Contribuitions by:

Miquel Adri, Alejandro Aravena, Mario Marchant, Fernando Perez, John

Turner, Juan Pablo Corvalan, Roberto Chaves/World Bank, Martin Delgado

and Esteban Varela, Francisco j. Quintana, Felix Madrazo, Ana Rascovsky

and Francisco Apa, Manuel de Rivero, Sofia Saavedra, Max Zolkwer and Leticia Balacek.

General concept:

SUPERSUDACA: Juan Pablo Corvalan, Stephan Damsin, Martin Delgado,

Felix Madrazo, Ana Rascovsky, Manuel de Rivero, Sofia Saavedra,

Max Zolkwer with PabloBrugnoli, Mario Marchant and Francisco j. Quintana.

Editors:

Juan Pablo Corvalan, Felix Madrazo and Manuel de Rivero

Graphic design:

Juan Pablo Corvalan, Natalia Gajardo and Ingrid Sepulveda/SuSuKa

Editing and Graphic design consultants:

Pablo Brugnoli and Kathryn Gillmore/SPAM

Translations:

Stephannie Fell, Stephan Damsin and Nicholas Drever

Photo credits:

Jose Luis Uribe, Tomas Garcia Puente, Supersudaca, otherwise noted.

Project supported by The Prince Claus Fund.

Special thanks to Joumana el Zein Khoury.

Supplement to VOLUME 21: The Block


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MARIO PANI AVANT LHEUREby M iquel Adria

EDITION: Manuel de Rivero

PHOTO CREDITS: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=838330&page=4

Pragmatic, and anti-solemn1Mexican architect Mario Pani

t on many fronts and bet big on total solutions that included

social, economic and political aspects. In Mexico Pani was the

rategist who sat down at the metropolitan chessboard to move

eces according to a plan. After him readings of the city would be

ented, tending toward autonomous interventions and minor urban

des.

I had long worried about this idea of residential architecture.

rigin of this matter is Le Corbusiers theory on the Radiant City

ise buildings that can free up space to make green areas with

ed service areas on the ground floor. Certainly this idea had never

carried out before, because at the same time it occurred to meake the first one, the Multifamiliar Miguel Alemn, Le Corbusier

making the Unit dHabitation in Marseille, a building of only 300

ments, but completed it after I finished the housing complex of

ximately 1,000 apartments.2

The Multifamiliar Presidente Miguel Alemn, a collective

ng complex built in 1948, was born as an arousing response to

eas competition held in 1946 by the Civil Pensions for a complex

00 houses for public employees. Pani proposed the Corbusian

l of high-rise block buildings (arranged zigzag, as is noticeable in

s of the Radiant Citys model3) occupying only 20% of the site

yoacn Avenue, increasing the population density to 1,000 per

re and freeing collective space for green and service areas. The

sal was as tempting as it was unusual for the client. In a moment

husiastic boldness, Pani asked to be granted an extended deadline

days to submit a detailed project with its corresponding budget. 4

milarly convinced his collaborators to develop the architectural

ct in a few weeks, working 24 hours a day in three shifts; and he

aded a group of enterprising young engineers to assume the risk of

ing an estimate and to build at a lower price. These engineers, ICA

any (Civil Engineers Associated), would shortly thereafter become

ost important engineering firm in Mexico. The architectural result

t intense work session was a complex of nine thirteen-storey and

ree-storey buildings. The first blocks are linked zigzag along one

lots diagonals and the lower ones are isolated over the faade

orter streets. The complex is north-south oriented, allowing most

rooms to enjoy east-west views. The linked buildings are oriented

south. The entire macro-block becomes a pedestrian area and

are parked around the perimeter. Ground floors are dedicated to

mercial and circulation

functions The apartments are duplex; the access level contains

tchen and dining room and the second level either up or down

bedrooms and bathroom. Circulation corridors are reduced to one

three floors.

Comparing this project with lUnit dHabitation de Marseille

e Corbusier was building at the time, Pani remembered our project

he big advantage that corridors were outdoors, like bridges, while

orbusiers were internal corridors.5 The architect also designed

istrative offices, a school for 600 students, a kindergarten, a

y room with individual, automatic machines and drying rooms, a

medical facility, a dining hall, a theater and sport facilities including a

semi-Olympic pool.6

In 1964 Mario Pani and his Taller de Urbanismo conducted an

exhaust ive study to eradicate the so-called slum horseshoe the belt of

slums surrounding the city on three sides they believed prevented the

healthy expansion of the capital city. The neighborhoods analyzed had a

density of 500 inhabitants per hectare on a single level (without services)

and was terribly overcrowded. For Nonoalco-Tlatelolco, Panis proposed

1,000 inhabitants per hectare, with 75% green areas and all services

integrated within the buildings, thus reversing the proportion of built and

empty space. The housing complex was divided into three macro-blocks

separated by existing north-south axes which provided continuity to the

urban layout. One could, however, walk through the entire complex from

the Tres Culturas plaza passing through La Reforma and continue across

two kilometers of trees and gardens to Insurgentes without coming

across any vehicles. 15,000 apartments were to be distributed in multi-

family buildings of various heights. Nonoalco-Tlatelolco represented an

exemplary, high-density, application of the modern principles that Pani

made his own. His recipes for fighting against urban ailments, often due

to accelerated growth, consisted in the creation of new cities within and

outside the city. The latter was carried out in Satellite City and Tlatelolco

was the opportunity to implement large-scale, radical surgery within the

existing city, taking advantage of precedents such as the Multifamiliar

Presidente Alemn and Presidente Jurez complexes.

The Nonoalco-Tlatelolco Unit represents for several generationsof architects and Mexican critics a crime of modernity, with no territorial

entrenchment or social cohesion7, one which shows the decay of the

good principles adopted for urban and housing design, praised by Pani

himself in his earlier housing complexes8. Nevertheless, these macro-

housing units are the product of the Modern Movements utopia, the built

dream Le Corbusier was aiming at with his Plan Voisin (1925) in which he

argued that a radical tabula rasa over the right bank of Paris was the only

solution to urban overcrowding.

The outline of the complex is drawn by the orthogonal

composition of the three building types that correspond to the three

housing typologies. Four-storey buildings without elevators make the

stairs into dynamic connectors allowing access to t wo apartments every

half-floor. This skillful invention is exposed in the dynamic side-faades.

The apartments offer two bedrooms and a bathroom. Eight-storey

buildings are perpendicular to the previous ones and repeat the scheme

used in Multifamiliar Jurez: circulation on the north side and faade

on the south. The section also shows how to make stairs efficient by

providing access to half-floors. These apartments have three bedrooms

and one and a half bathrooms.The tallest blocks are fourteen storeys

high with the lower floors dedicated to commercial use. These are

strategically equidistant so as to shorten the distance from any of the

complexs buildings to the commercial space.

There is an anecdote regarding the impact of this project:

it is said that Pani sent some black and white aerial photographs to

lArchitecture dAujourdhui, the most venerated magazine for this

francophone-trained architect. In response he received a very formalletter indicating that journal policy forbade them to publish photographs

of models. The French could not believe the images sent so familiar

within the project were real.

The project was severely criticized for its dimensions, lack of

aesthetics and the destruction of historical remains9. Nevertheless the

syncretism of the macro-plaza preserves some remnants of the pre-

Hispanic and colonial past, incorporating them into the representative

spaces of modernism abstract blocks and into the cacophonic toughness

of black and white faades.

One day in October of 1968 the articulating thread of Mexican

history was broken in the Tres Culturas plaza. Indiscriminate slaughter

ended demonstrations of popular discontent. Paradoxically, and perhaps

it is no coincidence, this happened in the new colony of Tlatelolco

designed by Mario Pani. If this housing complex for 100,000 inhabitants

was the paradigm of acritical, modern, high-rise linear blocks as in so

many other metropolitan peripheries across the planet it would also

be the turning point of Mexican architecture and the beginning of the

decay of Mario Panis brilliant and spectacular career. The metaphysical

beauty of this artificial landscape would become a taboo, burdened with

double meaning that celebrates the loss of freedom and the decease of

modernity. #

Mexican architect Mario Pani (1911-1993) inaugurated projects architects in Europe and A merica were only thinking about. T he

emblematic magazine LArchitecture dAujourdhui declined to publish his work when they mistook photographs o f the buildings

for photographs of models. His Tlatelolco project defined the rise and decline of a modern collective ideal: the Linear BLOCK.

Coincidentally, it also happened to be the background of the killings of the October 68 demonstration, which cons tituted nothing l

than the assassination of a co llective Mexican dream.

Not a model photo:

Nonoalco-Tlatelolco

colony

Linear blocks for

100,000 residents:

Tlatelolco (1958-1964)

1 From Graciela Garay, Mario Pani. Historia oral de la ciudad de Mxico. InstMora, Mxico 2000, page 132 Interview of Louise Mereles Gras in Mario Pani: la visin urbana de la arquitecExhibition Catalogue , Mxico 2000, page 253 Mario Pani traveled to France in 1948, intending to visit Le Corbusier anknow on site the works of lUnit dHabitation in Marseil le . After several attemLe Corbusier never received him since at that time he was under severe criticismhis pilot project and decided not to show anybody the work4 Pani, Mario. Los Multifamili ares de Pensiones, Editorial Arquitectur a Mxico,1page775 Graciela de Garay, Mario Pani. Historia oral de la ciudad de Mxico. InstMora, Mxico 2000, page 766 Graciela de Garay, Mario Pani, vida y obra, Coleccin Talleres UNAM page 7 Enr ique X. De Anda, Historia de la arquitectura Mexican a: la arquitectura desde la revolucin Mexicana, Ediciones G.Gil i, Mxico 1995, page 2288 Ib. Id. page 2289 Graciela de Garay, Mario Pani, vida y obra, Coleccin Talleres UNAM page 51

.01.

Biographical note:

Miquel Adri is an architect practicing in Mexico, a writer, researcher

and academic, director of Arquine architecture magazine. The

previous text comprises extracts of the opening essay on the book

Mario Pani: La construccin de la modernidad, Editorial Gustavo

Gili, 2005 [Mario Pani: The construction of modernity

Editors Note:

At Mexico City 1985 earthquake, Nonoalc o Tlatelolco, became a symbol again.

This time of destruction and tragedy of hundreds of deaths. The complex was

severely damaged: 1 block collapsed, 11 buildings had to be demolished while

4 other were shortened.


3/13

Collective housing state policies starts in Latin America with Franklin Delano Roosevelts New Deal (El falansterio in San Ju

Puerto Rico 1937) and in the 40s mocking welfare states such as Ciudad Evita (Argentina), El Silencio (Caracas) with 4 sto

maximum and the paternalistic approach of the time.

Afterwards, The Modern Megablock invented Europe was imported to Latin America and built massively very early; as for Instan

Carlos Villanuevas 23 de Enero 9126 units block series is from 1952-57, compared with emblematic examples as Toulous

Mirail by Candilis, Josic and Woods with 5656 units from 1960 -64. Le Courbusier s Unit dHabitation was indeed finishe

1952 but counted only 337 units.

Mega efforts proved to be vain in response to the rising housing demand and the fast and flexible self-build house is exponenti

generated in L.A. The Assisted Barriada became an alternative to make cheaper cities. PREVI Lima attempts to reconc

low-rise with high density, prefabrication with self building, modern planning with organic growth; a mid point between

Megablock and the Barriada. But it was forgotten.

Through the 70s the megablock and the assited Barriada were maintained as in Argentina infamous Fuerte Apache and bet

the considered Limas Villa el Salvador and Uruguayans bring the effective housing co operative model in Montevideo. Lately

Chiles 90s new democracy economical boom quantitative subsided housing is promoted to finish with slums, Elemental que

for quality within this model.

.02.SUPERSUDACA COLLECTIVE CASES TIMELINEby Super suda ca: S elect ion: Manuel de River o. In sets : Sof ia Saavedra * and

Felix Madrazo. Layout and edition: Juan Pablo Corvalan and Ingrid Sepulveda

NewYork19

.490.297in

hab.

Paris12.100.000inhab

Mexico18

.100.000i

nhab.

SaoPa

ulo1

9.50

5.000

inha

b.

Riode Janeiro 6.281.670 inhab.

Santiago 6.300.000 inhab.

Caracas1.8

00.000inh

ab.

Bogot6

.100.000

inhab.

Tokyo31.800

.000inhab.

ha

(m

Buen

osAir

es11.

500.000h

ab.

London7.592.30

0inhab

Lima6.90

0.000in

hab.

23 DE ENEROC.R Villanueva

Caracas, Venezuela

1955 - 1957

9176units

Poblacion San GegrorioSantiago, Chile1959

4384units

Villa Presidente Ros

Santiago, Chile

1945 - 59

5270units

Conjunto Los SaucesSantiago, Chili1982 - 84

843units

Ciudad Evita

Bs. Aires, Argentina

1948 - 57

5000units

Plan Cerro

Piloto

Caracas

Venezuela

1952 - 54

6000units

El Silencio

Caracas, Venezuela1941 - 45

7800units

Simon Rodriguez

Caracas, Venezuela

1956

1380units

EL Litoral

Caracas, Venezuela

1955 - 57

1974units

Comandante Piedrabuena


1979 - 1981

2100units

Villa Soldati

Bs. Aires, Argentina1981

3266units

Conjunto Nagera


1967

1302units

Conjunto Habitacional PalominoLima, Peru1964 - 65

1524unitsUnidad Vecinal 3Lima, Peru

1945 - 1949

1112units

Quirigua

Bogot, Colombia

1970

9460units

Co-op City Bronx

New York, US

1968 - 71

15372unitsBijlmermeer

Amsterdam, Netherlands

1966 - 71

13000units

Pruitt-igoeSt Louis, US1950 - 55

2870units

Robin Hood Gardens

London, UK

1968 - 72

213units

Parque Posadas

Montevideo, Uruguay

1970 - 73

2050units

Unidad Habitacional Presidente AlemanMexico, Mexico

1947 - 1949

1080units

337units

Unite dHabitacion

Marseille, France

1947 - 52FALANSTERIO

San Juan

Puerto Rico

1937

216units

PREVILima, Peru

1969 - 1971

500units

Poblacion AraucoSantiago, Chile

1940 - 45

300units

Lugano I y I I


1976

6440units

Conjunto habitacional LimatamboLima, Peru

1980 - 84

2300units

Timiza

Bogot, Colombia

1964 - 66

2000units

Eleme

Iquiqu

2000

Pedregulho

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

1947 - 52

478units

4.657units

332units

Conjunto Bulevard

Montevideo, Uruguay

1971-74

93

Fuerte Apache


1973

Nonoalco Tlatelolco

Mexico, Mexico1960 - 64

15000units

Unidad Vecinal Diego Portales

Santiago, Chile1954 - 66

1860units

Centro UrbanoAntonio Nario

Bogot, Colombia1952 - 58

960units

FALANSTERIO

El Falansterio in San Juan Puerto Rico. Designed by Architect Jorge Ramrez de Arellano in 1937 and built withfunds from the Puerto Rico Emergency Relief Administration (PRRA), origianly called Project-A, was the first TenementGroup out of three projects that were realized. It consisted of 216 apartments and was conceived as a self-sufficientcommunity . El Falansterio - originally a nickname to mock the project by its opponents referring it to the communityle Phalanstere of French utopian Charles Fourier (1772-1837) became an icon of collective housing for its utopianpotentials. The similarities with le Phalanstere though funny are also striking: both are planned around a public placefor quiet activity with a two storey building in the middle used as communal centre. Three-story buildings divided intoeighteen sections of twelve identical apartments coincided also with Fouriers surrounded inner court accessible onlyon foot. An interesting detail that unveils the paternalistic agenda behind its idealism is the fact that 2 apartments weresupposed to share their balconies in order to enhance the collective life within the complex. A reference project forLatin America, El Falansterio initiated also the never higher than 4 storeys rule that operated throughout the 40s.

Quartier Le Mirail

Toulouse, France

1961 - 75

5656 units

Park Hill EstateSheffield, UK

1957 - 61

995units

UV1 HABANA DEL ESTELa Habana, Cuba,

1959 - 1961

1300units

23 DE ENERO

Carlos Raul Villanueva proposed in 1952 to the Venezuelan government the construction of the experimentalmodernist megablock El Paraiso following all the precepts of CIAM in response to the explosive growth of thecity . This project became the prototype to cover the west of Caracas in a massive operation named Cerro Piloto.The crown of several similar project s was 2 de Diciembre nowadays 23 de Enero- inaugurated in 1955celebrating dictator Marcos Perez Jimenezs assumption. 2 de Diciembre housing super blocks were located ina recent Barriada clearance.Internal military unrest and social tensions led to the fall of the dictator: the very same day that he abandoned thecountry the biggest squat of collective housing in Latin America occurred and 2 de enero paradoxically renamedby that date: 23 de enero. Slowly leftover spaces were overtaken back by Barriadas. To a certain extent, theBarriadas ground floor occupation enriched -specially with commercial activities- the programmatic monotony ofthe mega blocks while those offered infrastructure such as schools, parking or sports areas that were kept. TheBarriadas self-organizing dynamics prevented most of the blocks from becoming chaotic and autistic with theretirement of the state. Nowadays political compatibility allowed 23 de Enero communities to return to talks withpoliticians, to end a decades old state neglect.

1970 1980 1990 2000196019501940 1965

* Biographical note: Sofia Saavedra runs CASArchitects with C arlos Weeber at Curaao and is Assistant Professor at t he University of the Netherlands Ant il les (UNA). She chairs DocomomoCuraao and is co-founding member of Supersudaca.


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ARG ENT INA MEGAB LOC KS Lastsby Ana Ra scovsky and Max Zolkwer

Whit: Leti cia B alace k and Franc isco Ap a Editi on: Fe lix M adrazo and J uan Pa blo C orvalan

Photo credits: Tomas Garcia Puente

1 Fuerte Apache is an obvious reference to the Bronxs infamous neighbourFort Apache2 Carlos Tevez a.k.a. El Apache played in Boca Juniors, Cruzeiro, ManchUnited and currently in Manchester City3 Story From el Negro Orlando, that being the same age as Tevez used to football with him in the several football fields from Fuerte Apache4 Thi s time the military was obeying a civil ian democratic government5 However welcome, in isolated events some gendarmes were kil led by the gangs

Enormous residential complexes developed in the outskirts of Buenos Aires when the military ruled Argentina in the 1970s, particul

triggered by the 1978 soccer World Cup. Argentina still blindly believed MEGABLOCKS would get rid of slums. With no complementa

welfare state policies in effect they eventually became three-dimensional ghettos. Their isolation prevents authorities to enter

procuring a crime and violence. Today they evolve between stigma to local pride. One example of this is Fuerte Apaches ex-reside

and Maradonas protg Carlitos Tevez who unashamedly declares his soccer origin from th e block..03.

Due to a major urban housing deficit in the 1970s caused by

mmigration to the cities the Argentinean state promoted a new

cial system for tenants called FONAVI (National Housing Fond). The

m sought to help low-income popilation, first time home owners,

displaced families affected by slum clearances and the recent

uction of the A1 highway that crossed Buenos Aires.

of the housing financed by FONAVI was built far from urban centers

was designed to create mass quantities of units with extremely

densities. It worked as a laboratory, permitting experimentation

a cocktail of modernist architectural ideas reproduced with great

sm and little criticism: CIAM dreams of high rise and open spaces,Alison+Peter Smithsons streets in the air with prefabrication and

ardization methods.

gh the se complexes have been absorbed by the growing cit y, they

ailed to integrate physically or socially due to a lack of maintenance,

rowding and the forced mixture of urban populations.

blocks remain ghettos dominated by drugs, crime and weapons

s. Still, those who are strong enough, such as internationally

wned soccer players or local cumbia villera(Argentinean tropical

ands, continue to emerge from these fortresses.

ample is Lug ano I and II wh ich were developed ove r eleven years,

1973 to 1984. Its 92,000 square meters (almost one million

e feet) and 40,000 inhabitants were supposed to f unction as a

e city. Services in its master plan included supermarkets, cinemas,

hes, social clubs, kindergartens, community centers, schools,

s clubs, medical centers, restaurants and banks.

round floor flows underneath the slabs providing room for parks,

ng lots and streets. The second floor connects its ten bars with

ed bridges over the streets and provides a commercial and services

Nowadays the area underneath the slabs is closed and the entire

d floor remains a no-go zone. During the day the area is empty of

ng family members and rush hours are congested.

Soldati, designed by Estudio Staff: Teresa Bielus, Olga Wainstein

k and Jorge Goldemberg, consists of 3,200 units with a social

, two shopping malls and 17,800 residents, a complex and casual

ognomy with neighborhoods and streets within the megastructure.

e structures are so intricated and diverse that sometimes even

ts cannot identify t heir own building and the police needs assistance

ter the premises. It was meant to be a programmatic continuity

he rest of the city. Instead it became an isolated ghetto. Some

s privatize common areas next to their apartments, as in jungle law,

shing macho ranks in each building.

ationally renowned architects Manteola, Snchez Gmez, Santos,

na designed Piedrabuena in 1974. It has an elevated plaza over

pal street crossings. Underneath this dark non-place is a center for

dealers. Lack of identity is so strong that each door of the complex

been customized: colors, wood, little pergolas, friezes, Greek

columns or brick finishing decorate every entrance of each apartment.

The complex was so poorly constructed and maintained that in 2005

it was declared a state of emergency by law and the state undertook

essential repairs.

Another ic onic cas e is the Barrio Ejercit o de los An des neighborhood.

Better known today as Fuerte Apache, it was built in several steps

between 1970 and 1978 starting during General Juan Carlos Onganas

and ending during General Jorge Rafael Videlas military dictatorships.

The aim was more to get rid of slums (especially before the World Cup)

than to solve the housing problem. Designed by the same architec ts who

shaped Villa Soldati, it occupies 23 hectares in the Ciudadela district of

Gran Buenos Aires. Groups of three towers and strips form rectangular

open spaces, aligned to the cardinal points. Each group of towers hosts

200 units that share only three elevators. The four-storey strip buildings

connect vertically by external stairs.

The structure of the buildings does not allow for expansion, so when

families grow they keep subdividing the interior of the houses in order to

accommodate new children and couples. The result is that density soars.

With the addition of four new towers the neighborhood expanded forming

an extra dense area, the space left by the expansion was occupied by

a slum.

Efficiency? Fuerte

Apach e towe rs are

linked by a core

of three elevators

connected every

three floors by

bridges. Each

tower has its own

stairs. Five keys

for every owner

before entering his

home.

Way out. Being

a famous Soccer

player or a Cumbia

Villera musician

seems the only exit

to Fuerte Apache..

The complex was always considered dangerous, however after the

2001 economic crisis conditions worsened. Most of its inhabitants lost

their jobs, maintenance of the buildings ended, the elevators stopped

working and the police was banned to enter by the gangs, converting

the complex into a ghetto where police profit from the earnings of the

zona liberada (free zone). The new scenario led the sensationalist TV

journalist Jos de Zer to label th e neighborhood Fuerte Apache1, the

name by which it is still known today. At that time the areas economic

activities were drug dealing and stripping stolen cars. Once inside the

complex the cityscape is out of sight, reinforcing its fortress qualities, a

perfect hideout. Apparently the only way out of t he Fuerte is to becomea football star a s international player Carlitos Tevez2 did. It is said that

a (supposedly more talented) friend of his founded easier to join a gang

and was eventually killed.3

In 2003 the Gendarmeria Nacional(a branch of the Army4) entered the

complex, setting up bases along its peripheries and 120 Gendarmes

now patrol the zone. Taking into account that the Buenos Aires Province

Police (Polica Bonaerense) is considered the most violent and corrupt in

Argentina, t he residents have welcomed the Gendarmes. 5 The control

zone works to keep weapons off the street and prevent stolen cars from

being brought into theFuerte. At the same time a slow, government-

funded refurbishing of the buildings has started. A facility to make

everybody proud is the newly installed synthetic grass soccer field where

the new Tevez(es) may one day play. #

Biographical note:

Ana R ascovsky and M ax Zolkwer are architects living in Argen tina and co-

founding members of Supersudaca they constitute the base in Buenos Aires with

their offices: EstudioJR and Pop-Arq, respectively. Both taught and researched

at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. Ana also is an appointed professor at the

Universidad de Palermo and Max airs urban notes at radio FM La Tribu.


5/13

opportunities to build constituencies based on the great majority. Q

often there was a show of police force opposing initial settlement

after a usually nominal battle with a few stones thrown and, perhap

little tear gas, the settlers would be left to get on with it, especially a

some bad press and the interventions of few politicians. Yet there w

a few mart yrs. A third factor is widely shared with other newly urbani

societies: the majority can only dream of buying a house or of ge

one from the state on affordable terms. The choice is to put up

appalling conditions in overcrowded slums or build your own. #

BARRIADA EXPERIENCE: John F.C. TurnerInterview

BY ROBERTO CHAVEZ with JULIE VILORIA & MELANIE ZIPPERER

DATE: 11 September 2000, World Bank, Washington D.C. EDIT: Felix Madrazo and Manuel de Rivero

ohn FC Turner:

.04.

After his studies at the Architectural Association, John Turner traveled to LA in the 1950s to work on informal settlements in Per

known as Barriadas. He exposed the idea that there was more to learn from these self-built enterprises than to teach as Architect

The Assisted Barriada approach he defended replaced the notion of Megablocks only plausible for few as a feasible way to

confront the big numbers in housing demand. T his interview presents how informal dynamics became his lifetime vocation.

1 Eduard Neira was a Peruvian architect who studied urban and regional planninthe Universit y of Liverpool. Neira gave Turner his first job in Peru: John Turner, Re-education of a Professional, in: John Turner and Robert Fitcher, FreedomBuild. Dweller control of the housing process (New York: MacMillan 1972) p. 122 The Puerto Rican Manual refers to the experience of organized mutual housing projects responsible for housing 30,000 rural families in 1949, mait by far the largest organized mutual help housing effort in this country. In project participants were paid only with of their labor. See Organization for Soand Technical Innovation, Self-Help Housing in the U.S.A. A preliminary repor(1969) a.k.a. OSTI Report cited by Richard B. Spohn in Freedom to Build note 1]3 A government-sponsored social mobil ization agency, the National SystemSupport of Social Mobil ization (Sistema Nacional de Apoyo a la Movil izacin S SINAMOS) was established in 1971 by the military government of Gen. JVelasco4 Director of the U.N. Centre for Housing, Building and Planning at the UNsin New York

Editor note: this is an edited version by Supersudaca of the orig

interview.

been working for the director of the Office for Technical Assistance

pular Urbanizations of Arequipa (OATA) for some months, sent

e then Peruvian Ministry of Public Works. Eduardo Neira had set

s office in 1955.1 Now, that is remarkable, right? I dont know

y national government that had taken official action to assist the

opment of squatter settlements before the sixties, or even later.

to Chavez: The chart you made in 1959 showed that the areas

built up as Urbanizaciones Populares, that is by the people

selves, actually covered a larger area than that of the city itself?

F.C. Turner:Yes, they did. They covered over a thousand hectares

the legally incorporated city area was less than a thousand.

to Chavez:Were Neira and his team aware of this as well? Did they

know what was going on?

F.C. Turner: Yes, they were very well informed. Eduardos cousin,

Matos Mar, an anthropologist, and John P. Cole, a British

apher who had left Peru before I arrived, had carried out excellent

ys of the barriadas the urban squatter settlements in Peru for

ernment report published in 1956. So many leading professionals

quite aware as to the magnitude of the phenomena.

to Chavez: What did they have in common? Were they from a

ol? Were they associated with the Accin Popular party?

F.C. Turner: I dont know about their schools, but Accin Popular

liberal, left leaning party similar to what we nowadays call a third

r bias. Very remarkable, really! This was really thirty years ahead of

st of the world. As a result of the earthquakes, money was available

st-earthquake reconstruction. The mayor of Arequipa was a bright

man and he listened very carefully. We knew he wanted to spend

of the money on building housing for the earthquake victims which

ot really a good idea as so few would had been helped. So we

sted a self-build scheme for those who had lost their inner-city

s and who had vacant plots in the Urbanizaciones Populares. This

tted us to double the number of people assisted. The mayor gave

go ahead. That was my first really useful experience of working at

ass roots level. Once we got the project going we soon realized that

rofessional assumptions of design, construction and managerial

iority were exaggerated, to say the least. We soon learned that

eeded our supposed clients own knowledge and the skills of local

rs. We also learned how badly our own bright ideas ignored their

es. [Laughter]

Viloria: Just to expand a little on that, how do you define your

nship with the people of the Urbanizaciones Populares? Is it

actual or are informal relationships bound by a common goal?

John F.C. Turner: Oh, theyre pretty formal. After all, there were

requirements attached to the money. So it had to be fairly rigidly allocated

to people who really were able to use it and were genuine victims of the

earthquake. The participants also took their responsibilities seriously as

progress depended on the fairly well disciplined contributions of their

labor and their work was assessed at regular evening meetings with each

group.

Roberto Chavez: This is the usual sort of thing today, but this was the

first time this was done.

John F.C. Turner: Well, I wouldnt say so. Faena days (voluntarycommunity work) were traditional and common at that time. The great

majority of these people were first and second generation migrants from

rural areas where mutual help with house building, roofing especially, was

the norm. Relationships were honest. There was no corruption of which

I was aware. Agreements were open and verbal, and although there was

probably more resistance to the over-organization my associates and I

proposed, they voiced no strong objection. We did talk them into the

aided and mutual self-help model from a Puerto Rican manual Eduardo

had given me.2All of t he 140 participants accepted the idea that it would

be quicker if they worked in groups. When it came to our designs for the

houses, however, they said little. As the project progressed we learned

that these were not the best approaches. Changes came rapidly. Our

first approach was really inappropriate which we learned as we began

working and talking together. So gradually the relationship changed

from a passive one, in which the participants said little and followed our

instructions, to working things out together including critically important

help from the local builder we had contracted as an overseer, buyer and

distributor of building materials. In hindsight we could have done a great

deal more with far less effort by allocating tranches of cash by stage:

once you have your foundations, you can get the next tranche for the

walls and so on until the work is complete. How you get your materials

and how you organize the work is your business. A few years later thats

just what Luis Ma rcial and I did in Lima very suc cessf ully.

Roberto Chavez:Let me interrupt you here for a minute, John. Do you

know of any other c ountries where they were already experimenting with

these types of things besides Peru in the fifties?

John F.C. Turner: Well, some projects along sites-and-services and

assisted self-build lines were carried out in colonial Africa in the nineteen

thirties, but I dont have more than secondhand references. Apart from

the few somewhat paternalistic, self-help housing projects in the USA

during the New Deal era and a larger program under governor Tugwell in

Puerto Rico in the forties I know of no other comparable innovations until

the sixties and seventies.

Roberto Chavez: The Peruvian model that then evolved into SINAMOS3

for the Pueblos Jvenes during the Velasco Alvarado regime seems to

have come, well, in part from you through Eduardo Neira, but where were

its roots as far as you know?

John F.C. Turner: I believe the Velasco regimes constructive policies

toward the barriadas under which they were renamed pueblos jvenes

were due in large part to the courses on development at the Escuela

Militargiven by people like Neira and Matos Mar at the invitation of the

young colonels, known as the young Turks of the 1950s. It would have

been during General Odras administration that the dictator, impatient

with the housing professionals insistence on building to high modern

standards the vast majority could not afford, actually supported the

takeover of San Martn de Porres that huge barriadaor pueblo jvenin

Lima. Barriadasbecame suddenly the architectural limelight.

I should have mentioned the national press coverage of the self-buildproject in Arequipa. La Prensagave it a center-page spread in its Sunday

Supplement. Navely, I did not realize that publicity coming from La Prensa

instead of El Comercio (the conservative bankers paper) would anger the

administration boses and since they felt threatened by the publicity given

to the self-built project, I was out on my ass in no time! [laughter]. All I

got out of it, at first, was a commission from Ernest Weissman 4 to write

up the project.

Roberto Chavez:On your experience in Arequipa?

John F.C. Turner: Yes. The next significant development, it must have

been in 1962, was an article in the British Sunday Times supplement

magazine by Jan Morris; a very fine writer who, nevertheless, wrote an

appallingly misleading, bleeding heart view of the barriadas. This not

only angered me, but also the British ambassador. They called me and

said, look, youve got to do something about this. Coincidentally, Monica

Pidgeon, the editor ofArchitectural Design, was about to visit Peru. After

touring the Lima barriadas with her, an immensely impressed Monica

said she must do a piece and asked me to be the guest editor. So the

special issue on Dwelling Resources in Latin America was published in

August 1963. It was the first illustrat ed publicat ion that presented w hat

the majority of city builders in urbanizing countries were doing in a

positive light. The magazine was picked up by Weissman, Wilson Garcs

and company at the U.N. They interested George Movshon, the UNTV

commissioner and, in 1964, A Home of Their Own was filmed, mainly in

Lima: The Peruvian barriada formula.

Melanie Zipperer: What made this Peruvian experience special? Were

there special conditions? Or do you think it would have been possible to

repeat it in another region?

John F.C. Turner:It is important to put some geographic and historic fact

on record: in the first place there was plenty of accessible, vacant land of

no commercial value surrounding all Peruvian cities on the desert coast

in the 1950s and 60s. Second, in Peruvian law desert land can only be

owned privately if its cultivated. It otherwise belongs to the state, which

can lease it only for mining. In effect empty desert land is the peoples

commons. Opposition to the settlements technically illegal unauthorized

development of the land was politically counter-productive. It upset the

planners and middle classes but politicians could make good use of the


6/13

so long ago, in a far away country

Despite titanic efforts like 1950s Carlos Raul Villanuevas 23

nero in Caracas or 1960s Mario Panis Nonoalco Tlatelolco in

o City - squatter settlements in Latin America outgrew every housing

am, public or private. The rational and austere high-rise-collective-

ng-superblock proved useless next to the faster and more flexible

t-yourself-forever shack of the barriadas (shantytowns). An attempt

oncile rationality with flexibility was undertaken in Peru. The apparent

e-sac for Latin American collective housing might still hide a promising

eled path.

1969, mankind reached the moon and ina tried to solve the housing problems of the

rd World: T he Lima Project: PREVI

The most ambitious architectural enterprise of our times lays

cably forgotten from the professions history. In the late 1960s, under

onsorship of the United Nations, the most lucid architects of the era

congregated in Lima (Peru) in a remarkable effort to use innovative

ng to help the low-income sect ors of the Third World: the Experimental

ng Project (PREVI). The concepts and techniques they developed

tute a hidden treasure for a discipline that has ceased to deploy its

talented minds where they are most needed.

riadas of Lima

In the early 1960s, Latin-American cities were growing

ndously fast. Perus capital Lima was experiencing steady immigration

he countryside as people lured to the city by the chance to improve

ving conditions.1At that time people solved their housing needs on

wn. Squatting empty land near the outskirts of the city, they settled in

sticated patterns, building their own houses, urbanizing vast territories,

atching the eye of the international architecture community. Jose

Mar, John F.C. Turner, William Mangin and other scholars who studied

henomenon in the field, reported and theorized on these episodes in

ain architecture journals.2To the iconoclastic intellectuals of the sixties,

arriadas (shantytowns) of Lima turned into an avant-garde form of

sm.3 To the Peruvian dwellers, such enterprise meant a hardworking

of survival. Despite the pioneering efforts of the Peruvian government

ognize such heterodox way of settlement and formalize them into

living conditions,4every attempt to stop them proved unsuccessful,

the scale and speed of the issue. By the mid 1960s, informal housing

a outnumbered the formal.

hitect President

In 1963, Fernando Belaunde was elect ed President of Peru:. In

he was called a Latin American architect of hope on the cover of

He had made himself a prominent figure by organizing the first school

hitecture, the planning institute, as well as promoting modern social

ng ensembles from the architectural magazine he directed. When

came president, he compulsively built high and mid-rise housing

exes all over Peru. Confronted by the impracticality of his housing

to cope with the speed of the barriadas, he tried a different strategy:

AND PRE VI?By Felix Madrazo, Juan Pablo Corvalan, Felix Madrazo and Manuel de Rivero

Supersudaca

PHOTO CREDITS: Supersudaca Y PREVI? research archive.

Why not hold an international competition to find innovative housing

concepts and techniques, taking into consideration the same parameters

the dwellers of the barriadas did (a house that grows in a lot in a low rise-

high density mode) and using state-of-the-art technology to build homes

economically and on a massive scale.

United Nations Class

During 1965, President Belaunde -with officials from his circle

and led by British architect Peter Land 5 - elaborated further on how to

organize such project. In 1966, this idea was officially presented to the

United Nations Development Program. After examining the Peruvian

situation for several months, and recognizing its prototypical condition for

application of the findings of the project in the rest of the Third World, the

U.N. decided to sponsor the enterprise as a pilot project.

The project aimed for a holistic approach towards the housing problem

which was divided in three priority groups. This way three complementary

pilot projects were devised: Design and Construction of a new neighborhood

(PP1), Urban Regeneration of an existing Slum (PP2) and a Site and

Services self-aid program (PP3).

False Start

The Pilot Project 1 (PP1) -thesubject of this essay- was a

competition open to Peruvian and a selection of prominent internationalarchitects. While the selection process was going on, a military coup in

October 1968 ousted president Belaunde. The new military government

(which was uncharacteristically left-oriented given the Latin American

context) disregarded the PREVI project by identifying it with Belaunde

policies- and intended to cancel it. The UN agreement impeded that, and

the project went ahead, this was however- a major setback regarding

future support from the Peruvian government. The competition started in

March 1969 and thirteen international teams (as dictated by funding) were

finally selected.

The Dream Team

The selection of the international teams supported by the U.N.

included an all-star cast most of them in their forties- from the architect ural

scene sympathetic to housing innovation:

Representing France was the office of George Candilis (b.1913), Alexis

Josic (b.1921) and Shadrach Woods (b. 1923) 6 key components of

Team 10 and former collaborators with Le Corbusier, especially on housing

projects such as Unite dMarseille and Arbat in Morocco. Aldo van Eyck

(b.1918) another founder and prominent figure of Team 10, represented

the Netherlands. At the time he was famous for his structuralist approach,

his Orphanage in Amsterdam (1955-1960) and his quasi-anthropological

studies on Dogon cultures use of space. Representing Poland were Oskar

Hansen (b.1922) and Svein Hatly who had realized the housing estate at

Przyczulek Grochowski in Warsaw (1963). Hansen too was a member of

Team 10 and the author of the Open Form concept7, which allowed the

user active participation in the creation process. James Stirling (b.1926)

represented the United Kingdom. Famous worldwide at that time on acc ountof his Runcorn New Town Housing8(1967-76), where he managed to build

1500 dwellings cheaply via mass production with large pre-cast panels in

a low-rise high density neighborhood whose units were clustered around

squares, which was precisely what PREVI was looking for.Japan was

represented by Kiyonori Kikutake (1928), Fumihiko Maki (19 28) and Kisho

Kurokawa (1934) who were famous for their Metabolist Manifesto and who

had been engaged as consultants for the Japanese Construction Industry at

the Nippon Prefabrication Co. developing cheap prototype capsule houses

since 1961.

From Switzerland came Atelier 5, a young collaborative group of architects

who, had built the absolute icon of low-rise high-density housing, the Halen

residential complex near Bern(1955-61) and later Thalmatt 1 residential

complex (1967-72)9 on their own initiative, Denmark was represented

by Knud Svenssons (b.1925) who had developed the innovative low-rise

prefabricated Albertslund neighbourhood 10near Copenhagen (1962).

Finland was represented by Toivo Korhonen (b.1926), a disciple of Alvar

Aalto, who had built the Tonttukallio, a terraced house project in Espoo

(1959) Spains representatives were Jose Luis Iiguez de Onzoo (b.1927)

and Antonio Vasquez de Castro (b.1929) authors of the successful managed

settlement Cao Roto in Madrid (1957-1969).

From Germany came Herbert Ohl (b.1926) who worked at the Department

of Industrialized Construction at the Ulm School founded by Max Bill in

1951.

Representing India, Charles Correa (1930) had won first prize in an all-

India competition for low-cost housing with his climatically designed tube

house.

Representing a team from United States was the Center for Environmental

Design led by the young star of the day Christopher Alexander (b.1936).

The only Latin American team was from Colombia, led by former Le

Corbusier collaborator German Samper (b.1924) with his partners Esquerra,

Senz & Urdaneta who had successfully built a neighborhood with the aid of

the dwellers called La Fragua in Bogota.

Brief

The international competi tion asked for the design

and construction of a neighborhood for 1,500 low-cost, flexib le

dwellings as low-rise, high-density housing. Thus they were not

looking for multistory buildings or megastructures. The primary aim of

The occasions in architecture when the disciplines intelligentsia gathers to address pressing social issues seem to be few and fa

away. A last time when this happened it was in respons e to the demanding living conditions created by Limas explosive populatio

growth. (...)

05.A.

Megamix.

Aerial view

of PREVI

final built

layout: none

and all the

competitions

entries.

1969. The arrival

to the Moon and

the Barriada.

1 Population growth rat e in Lima during 1961-1972 was 5.5% per year.2 See Architectur al Design, august 1963. A barriada from Lima is featured icover, while the whole issue is devoted to portrait the shantytowns architecture3 Famous is the case when Charles Jencks places the barriadas in his EvolutioTree of the 20th century architecture between Archigram and the Metabolists.4 In 1961, the Peruvian Government passed th e pioneer law 13157: the first wrecognized a formal status to the barriadas and sought for their upgrading properly urbanized settlements.5 Pet er Land is a British architect graduated from the Architect ural AssociationYale, who first went to Peru in 1960, sponsored by OAS, to teach unti l 1963 at Lima Planning Institute founded by Belaunde. Land went back to Lima in 196work for United Nations and then stayed as the main advisor of PREVI unti l 19736 PREVI was the last project designed by Candil is-Josic-Woods partnership sthey split right after it in 1969.


7/13

05.B


Atelie r 5.

Prefabrication

ready for

adaptation

Hope. 1963

elected

Peruvian

President,

Archi tect

Fernando

Belaunde on

cover of Time

(1965).

ompetition was to come up with pioneering concepts in four levels:

use typology, the construction technique, how it was clustered and a

matic design of t he neighborhood.

nly mandatory component of the program was that lots had to have

floor area of between 80m2 (860 sq. ft.) and 150m2 (1,600 sq.

d dwellings between 60m2 (645 sq. ft.) and 120m2 (1,300 sq. ft.)

y in one or two-storeys structures built by c ontractors but the buildings

be constructed such that the addition of a third floor by the families

elves was possible. Seeking standardization, everything was based

00mm module.

urban design level schools, a sports center, a community center and

ns were considered. Automobiles were not to be parked on individualoads were to be kept to minimum due to high costs and separating

from pedestrian areas was recommended (prioritizing the design of

ter).

ustering of dwellings should be studied to stimulate community life

d open, multipurpose spaces.

were to be entirely enclosed by a 2.20m (7.2 foot) high wall and a

private garden needed to be an integral part of the house. Dwelling

were divided thusly: 40% for couples with one or two children, 40%

uples with three or four children and the remaining 20% for couples

or more children. 25% of the units were to be left incomplete, to be

ed later by the owners themselves. In the future houses should be able

w to accommodate up to ten people including the elderly.

eriment Proposals

Proposals, especially from the international teams, were highly

mental and ground-breaking.

istically they ranged from environmentally-based solutions (Hansen,

a, Van Eyck) to user-determined (Alexander) to public square-based

g, Samper) to mat layout (Ca ndilis, Ohl).

ouses ranged from squared patio houses (St irling, Samper) to narrow

ong (Alexander, Japanese, Hansen) to modular (Svenssons, Ohl,

nen) to puzzle-like (Correa, Candilis) to H-shaped (Van Eyck).

ruction technologies varied from modular concrete brick (Van Eyck,

a, Japanese, Samper) to bamboo beams (Alexander) to prefab

ete panels (Atelier 5, Svenssons) to prefab concrete parts (Hansen,

g, Ohl) to concrete porticoes (Korhonen).

y Frictions

In August 1969 the teams submitted their proposals and the

ational jury met in Lima. The high profile jury included Spanish

ect Jose Antonio Coderch, American prefab guru and designer of

uilt kit home Carl Koch, Danish MIT professor Halldor Gunnlogsson,

an Ernest Weissmann former Le Corbusier collaborator and director

UN Housing Section together with PREVIs director Peter Land and

Peruvian representatives. The high quality and broad spectrum of the

sals generated intense discussion since part of the jury inclined toward

ost inventive proposals as concerns construction while others liked

best adapted technologically and sociologically to Peruvian reality.

nternational winners were Kikutake-Kurokawa-Maki, Atelier 5 and

rt Ohl. Still, a minority of the jury issued an alternative report due to

unconformity with the competitions outcome specially with the selection

of Ohls proposal and strongly recommending Alexanders scheme for

publication.

PREVI strikes back: Why choose if you can build em all?

Given the experimental tone of the project, in 1970 upon

the jurys recommendation it was decided to develop and build all(!) 26

proposals (13 international and 13 Peruvian) instead of just the six winners

in order to test the broadest possible set of concepts. Peter Land and the

multidisciplinary Development Group assembled an urban layout based

on the best ideas from the competition which resulted in a patchwork of

clusters by the different teams.

Thereafter a new story started: the process of making the proposals reality,

known as PREVI episode two. A research and development laboratory was

set up in Lima bringing into the project various experts who tested and

evaluated construction processes and mat erials in order to bring down costs

and speed up construction with relatively unskilled labor. In 1974 the first

phase of 500 dwellings were finally built. Just at that moment the Peruvian

military government closed and dismantled the PREVIs Development Group

office, the international experts and UN officials went home, the records

were archived and the case closed.

The return of PREVI: How-to-enlarge-yourself

this famous architects weird prefab house

It took two years before the first housing was inhabited. In 1976

families moving in wandered around this strange neighborhood of white,

unadorned houses looking for their own. Finnish houses were very popular

since they were not built with bearing walls but of columns and were thus

easier to modify. No one ever gave these new experimental home residents

plans as to how their homes could be enlarged or modified.

With the inhabitation of PREVI a new experiment had started and Peruvian

dwellers were on their ownagain.

(...) The 1960s all-star architects where led by Peruvian President Belaunde an architect himself- into the

PREVI (Proyecto Experimental de Vivienda) competition. Belaunde once labeled a Latin American architect of hope on the cover

Time was able to garner the unprecedented support of the United Nations development program for an experiment to cope with t

urgent demand of new living areas. (...)

7 Hansen presented his Open Form concept in the Otterlo 59 CIAM as well the first official Team 10 meeting at Bagnols sur Ceze 1960.8 It was demolished in 1990, after the residents voted for it. Residents chairwoMargaret Davies said The architect either had a brainstorm or was suffering facute depression when designing the estate. from Building Design, March 3, 19page 5.9 That low-rise, high-density housing is both practical and eminently l ivablebeen more than adequately demonstrated in a number of situations since the enthe 1950s, most notably perhaps in Atelier 5s Siedlung Halen built outside BeSwitzerland, in 1960 and in the later Thalmatt Siedlung (1985) designed by same architects. Frampton, Kenneth in Modern Architecture: A Critical St3rd edition. Page 34210 Albertlund neighborhood experience could be seen as a direct referfor PREVI. More about that project at: http://hje m.get2net.dk/lighth oalbertslundsyd.htm.


8/13

PREVI was one of the last occasions whentern archi tec ts were committed t o a struc tura l

roach to urban problems in t he Thi rd Wor ld. uive stei jn, Du tch Polit ician , in Th e Hid den As signm ent ( Rott erdam : NAI Publi shers,

P resident Belaunde ca l led me one day and sa id: I am think ing, i t is about for new housing ideas to come up and I think the Uni ted Nat ions w i l l suppor t an

rnat iona l compet i t ion. do Correa, Architect and Peruvian Director of PREVI (1968). Fernando Correa interviewed by Supersudaca, Lima, January 2006

I hope this projec t w i l l be ca l led the Lima Projec t and tha t i t w i l l have asmuch a benef ic ia l inf luence on urban and rura l p lanning globa l ly as the Athens

Char ter did. Fernando Belaunde, Peruvian President (architect). Quoted in El Peruano, newspaper report of the PREVI opening speech, June 28 1968

There is one impor tant lesson exper ience has taught me and no matter what type ofcast you use, on s i te, prefab, convent iona l etc . , the people in this s i tua t ion are very dynamic

and w i l l modi fy the hous e in shor t order . Ernesto Winkowski, Architect. Director of PREVI by United Nations (1972-1976). Ernesto Winkowski interviewed by Supersudaca, Montevideo, February 2006

Between the suburban low-r ise, low densi ty development type and high-r ise apar tmentc tures there is a need for another model o f urban form for town growth. An objec t ive of the PREVIhborhood was to develo p such a model of low-r ise, high densi ty u rban form.

r Land, Architect and Director of PREVI for the United Nations (1968-1972). Peter Land interviewed by Stephen White, Chicago, April 1992, published in AD Mar-Apr 1994

Al l the archi tec ts and thei r teams were brought to Peru to have the compet i t ion br ief expla inedm, to get acqua inted w i th Peru, to obta in a l l the informat ion possib le. Absolutely everyone wase. Not only did they get lec tu res on Peruvian l i fe but a lso they got a chance to v is i t the s lums. Iember tha t Chr istopher Alexander l ived there for 15 d ays w i th his team of thre e archi tec ts. Germanper went to La Quinta Hee ren in Bar r ios Al tos. The archi tec t f rom Finland went to l ive to a v i l lage

rby. Reading the br ief and designing the house was not thei r goa l . They wanted t o know peoplessyncrasies and the desig n was a imed a t a group of hu mans, not designing housing for the sake ofhere was a need to respond t o the character ist ics of the commu ni ty. Nowadays the soc ia l aspect ish neglec ted. Barrionuevo, Engineer and Member of PREVI Development Team. Quoted from an interview with Raquel Bar rionuevo by Supersudaca, Lima, January 2006

We were inv i ted to Lima f or 15 days. They received us, gave us lec tures and courses becausethe concept of soc ia l ho using for a German, Br i t ish or French i s qui te di f ferent th an ours. I t s muchpoorer.German Samper, Architect and Colombian participant in PREVI. German Samper interviewed by Elizabeth Aaos for Supersudaca, Bogota, April 2008

We studied the way they l ived verycareful ly. We became members of fami l ies. And sowe rea l ly immersed ourselves in i t .

Alexa nder, Ar chite ct an d US parti cipant in P REVI. From Micha el Me haff y, A

Conversation with Christopher Alexander. Katarxis no.3, London, September 2004:

http://www.kararxis.com

Whose problems are you try ing to solve i f not your own? Who ca l ls upon a few in the name of a l l? TheLord? Al l? Or just you?

Aldo van Ey ck, Arc hitec t an d Dut ch par ticip ant i n PR EVI. From A ldo va n Eyc k lec ture on Ba rriad as, Del ft, O ctober 1970

The thing which is di f ferent about Peru is th e tremendous free- for-a l l amonghouse owners and bui lde rs we have to a l low for this, and organize i t into somethingless uncontrol led. In a way, i t is restr ic t ive not to bui ld for some change andadapta t ion. James Stirl ing, Architect and UK participant in PREVI. Quoted from The Times, London, 1969

The rea l compet i t ion jury should take place decades a fteroccupat ion, a f ter a l l i t was a progressive housing cha l lenge! Kiyonori Kikutake, Architect and Japanese participant in PREVI. Kiyonori Kikutake interviewed by Supersudaca, Tokyo,

July 2006

If Weissenhof S iedlung is the natural

childbirth of social housing in the Fi rst World,

PREVI is the coitus interruptus of Third World

housing.

Supersudaca . In: And PREVI? First prize winning entry at the IV Iberoamerican Bienal,

Lima, October 2004

John Turner and his fasc ina t ion w i th Lima inf luenced and convinced everyone of the capac i tyof people to provide themselves w i th decent housing. This has been ter r ib ly mis interpreted as a la issezfa i re a t t i tude of a rchi tec ts in the Thi rd Wor ld in which what you should do - a t most - is comply w i th theinfrastruc ture and leave the rest to the people themselves. Turner has been th e excuse for a rchi tec ts toremain absent from the topi c . Instead, now archi tec ts only want to do museums and become famous,sta rchi tec ts! Why are there so few internat iona l compet i t ions on soc ia l housing? PREVI was exemplaryin this regard. Charles Correa, Architect and Indian participant in PREVI. Charles Correa interviewed by Supersudaca, Mumbai, March 2008

05.C


PREVI QUOTES: compilation by supersudaca: y previ? research

(...) The result confronted an opposing jury minorit y report, plus an unusual for the time leftist coup jeopardized the whole operati

Finally none of the schemes were fully realized, but all of them would be built jointly.


9/13

TTransformality.

James Stirlings

proposal from

house to complete

school.

05.D

AND PRE VI?By Felix Madrazo, Juan Pablo Corvalan and Manuel de Rivero

PHOTO CREDITS: Supersudaca

11 The Re-education of a Professional (ch. 6). An anecdotal account ofexperiences during my first year in Peru. Housing as a Verb (ch. 7). Freedto Build, Dweller Control of the Housing Process, co-edited with Robert Fiincluding the authored and co-authored chapters l isted below (Macmillan: York, 1972), Libertad para Construir (Siglio XXI: Mexico, 1976), Libert di Cost(Il Saggiatore: Milan, 1979).12 John F. Turner, Reflections on scale and subsidiarity in urban development poverty alleviation: a personal view of development by people. Keynote addresthe Urban Forum 2002: Tools, Nuts & Bolts At the World Bank (Washington,

Apri l 2-3, 2 002) .13 Private interview with Koyinuri Kikutake, August 2007. This was a risky operaas nowadays their proposal hides undistinguishably behind a multiple progstrip.14 In 1976 Charles Jencks pinpointed the death of modern architecture to a precmoment in time: July 15, 1972 at 9:32 P.M. (or thereabouts) with the demolof Minoru Yamasakis Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis. Charles Jencks, Language of Post-modern Architecture (New York: Rizzoli, 1977), p. 9.15 51% of the world population live in slums according to UN data on spopulations in urban areas (http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?d=MDG&f=seriesD%3a711).

RWARD: OLD SCHOOL = NEW SCHOOL

Four lessons can be learned from PREVIs approach for future

tive ventures:

n 1: Typological diversity

As in nature, variety is good. PREVIs typological diversity

rages distinction and identity in an urban environment. Within a rich

g a wide range of people can coexist and complement each other,

g their character to the living milieu and taking care of it as their feeling

onging increases over time.

is the execution of the unplanned as all of the competition entriespartially built. This perhaps cancelled the potential experiment in the

contributions, but this deficit was compensated for with a new output

ralistic strength, leaving space for achievements and errors to evolve.

iving processes, biologically diverse crossovers generate hybrid vigor

d of a degenerated endogamy. Mixing Aldo Van Eycks honeycomb

with Atelier 5 constructive scheme plus Oskar Hansens pioneering

display, to name a few of the most underestimated urban inventions

e, was both a sacrilege and a master stroke.

n 2: Blow up folklore

In dynamic social environments everything that can grow will

and often does so far beyond that which had been imagined.

of PREVIs competition requirements was the ability of the design

velop over time in order to accommodate an increasing number

habitants. An orientation as to how the residents could expand

their dwellings themselves was also strongly advised. All the proposals

offered seamless growth possibilities in several ways. Some were more

paternalistic like Aldo van Eycks self-imposed angled perimeter wall to

avoid filling setbacks and ensure natural ventilation and light. Other, more

autochthonous proposals, like James Stirlings, offered spiral growth around

a central patio. The Metabolist team explained to have left the front garden

for expansion.13Yet none of the precautions and meas ures were enough to

predict the future: the transformation of the units almost totally blurred the

original intentions. Today the original designs are recognizable and show an

unexpected richness of possibilities, indeed so rich that valuable empirical

evidence for further experiences still to be figured out lies beneath it and is

probably changing even as you read this.

Lesson 3: Programmatic pandemonium

One of the clearest conclusions is that multi-programmatic

options imply an opportunity to beat poverty. Yet program shifts and

combinations were not an important concern in PREVIs original proposed

schemes. Nevertheless, more than 60% of the area has suffered

programmatic alterations. This self-entrepreneurship has led to the most

curious deformations and unconventional astuteness. Extremely appealing,

almost charming, are James Stirlings four-storey high school, Atelier 5s

kindergarten and Maki, Kurokawa and Kikutakes food strip, a shortlist

not just of hybridization, but of the fully spontaneous generation of a new

species.

Lesson 4: La Vecindad

The 1970s Mexican television show El Chavo del 8 was a

childrens humor program built around a quite particular - almost dramatic

- condition: an orphan (el Chavo) lived in a barrel among characters in

the patio of a semi-enclosed community: La Vecindad, a shared space

of contiguous dwellings inhabited by a single mother with his son (Doa

Florinda and Quico), plus a single father with his daughter (Don Ramon

and La Chilindrina), and an elderly woman (la Bruja del 71). In short: no

archetypical family configurations here. Misunderstandings and conflicts

developed among the characters and others that nourished absurd

situations in which El Chavo was always the clumsy protagonist. These

initially innocent looking stories ended up not only portraying Mexican social

reality, but are also valid for most of Latin American. La Vecindad is more

an arrangement than a typology. Somehow without wanting it people took

care of each other. This intermediate scaled patt ern within the city, between

the neighborhood and the particular unit, probably constitutes PREVIs

achievement.

FAST FORWARD: SUCCESSFUL FAILURE

The tempting judgment is to regard PREVI as another failure in

architecture initiatives with a social agenda. It was never really executed as

planned for the process was full of exceptions and problems, none of the

designs operated as imagined, genius ideas were misused and architectural

form disfigured. Some, more generously, argue that it is nothing more tha n

the remnant of a welfare state, an impossible wet dream. This is correct if

we think of architecture as a purely static and aesthetic event, unable

to cope with indetermination. Paradoxically, this makes it impossible for

architecture to act for the most demanding of intelligent conceptions.

Of course its absurd to hold architecture responsible for all the worlds evils.

Quality architecture may be achieved without any further social concerns.

Nevertheless, looking back at PREVI offers a glimpse of another stance:

architecture not only as an end in itself, but also as a medium for a higher

objective.

Where unpredictable is at the same time the result of drastic alterations for

the benefit of the whole, diversity and incompleteness is an achievement.

Implying the disappearance of authorship in an anonymous collection of

infinite individual expressions: a true collective architecture.

NO MORE SOCIAL HOUSING (Anti-manifesto)

It seems that as soon as the notion of social housing is discarded

more possibilities for a new awareness of appealing living proposals for

those who need it the most open up. Its no surprise that nowadays nobody

wishes to live in a stigmatized area of a city and social housing has become

a socialist caviar fixation with segregation as a counter-effect. Social housing

has lost its original meaning or even worse has turned into a burden and its

failure set off declarations for changing architectural priorities.14

Nevertheless, taking a step back could help further a rchitectures

contribution. This would be a revised and blameless approach for the benefit

of the worlds population.15 Speaking freely about collective implications

and above all recovering and developing truly innovative architectural

thinking could become a continuous challenge for architects.

Nevertheless, taking one step back could help to jump further

to broaden architectures contribution bandwidth. This could tend to a

renovated and blameless approach for the benefit of a large number of the

worlds populations. Speaking about collective implications could become

a continuous challenge; above all, an instance to recover and breed truly

innovative architectural thinking. #

Biographical note:

Juan Pablo Corvalan is an architect living in Chile, co-founding member of

Supersudaca and its project base in Santiago: Supersudaka.cl, teaching and

researching in the Universidad de Talca and the Universidad Andres Bello.

Felix Madrazo is an architect living in The Netherlands, co-founding member of

Supersudaca and its project base in Rotterdam: IND, teaching and researching

in TUDelft.

Manuel de Rivero is an architect living in Peru, co-founding member of

Supersudaca and its project base in Lima: 51-1, teaching and researching in

the Universidad Catolica de Lima.

(...)This generated an unexpected mix of a new urban and residential layout missed by almost every book on architectural history

PREVI remains an undiscovered black box of collective knowledge to be found.

IND: PREVI AFTERMATH

The result of the Experimental Housing Project in Lima could

en not only as an exemplary case to review, but also the inspiration

hrase architects will. For example, by replacing social with diverse,

housing with neighborhood - more in an anthropological sense

than a untouchable architectural fetish - PREVI may unexpectedly

ering an understanding of a successful urban environment open to

ation, integration and opportunities for mid and low-income citizens

Third World.

As John Turner11 has pointed out, architects have much to

about how people live outside developed countries. Overcoming

ndency toward paternalistic utopia and practical indifference, Turner

a kind of tripod12 approach, mobilizing the local, private and public

s to create quality, sustainable living settings in presently unsteady

ions.

accidentally, today PREVI is exactly what Turner described. PREVI

ndeed designed by the most committed generation of architects of

ast century, but later massively adapted by their users. This proves

ometimes misunderstandings can have happy endings for PREVI is

cessfully modified, personalized, parodied, customized and mutated

ct. It is a mix that exudes a vital sign of our time; more than informality

is transformality, not only brilliant pieces by talented professionals but

nd of collective practical intelligence with architects output as sub-

ure.

Note:

Y PREVI? project has been supported by Stimulerings Funds and Bienal

Iberoamericana de Arquitectura.


10/13

MONTEVIDEO COOPERATIVO: Gustavo GonzalezInterview

By Martin Delgado and Esteban Varela DATE: 7 July 2009 TRANSLATION:

Stephannie Fell and Nicholas Drever PHOTO CREDITS: Supersudaca, C Cooperativista del Uruguay.

Gustavo Gonzalez1 is an initiator of the Mutual Aid Cooperatives in Montevideo, a paradoxical initiative begun in the 1970s and

maintained through the eighties. While the world was looking elsewhere Uruguayans developed shared property management and

self-construction for collective housing. This interview documen ts an unheard success story and offers clues as to how their succe

might be packaged for wider implementation no w..06.

Mutual Aid

Cooperative

Mesa 3.

1 Gustavo Gonzlez is part of a Mutual Aid Cooperative and former leadethe Uruguayan Federation of Mutual-Aid Housing Cooperatives. At present, hcoordinator for the Housing and Habitat program of the Swedish Cooperative Ce(SCC) i n La t i n Amer i ca2 Besides the mortgage loan, users pay a monthly fee for day-to-day maintenaas well as building structure conservation3 T here are two types of housing Cooperatives in Urugu ay. The Prior Savings owhere members contribute with their savings complementing State credit the Mutual Aid ones, that resort to the work of their members as manual laduring the construction. Both may be owners or users type. In owner cooperatiafter the construction phase is completed, each member is given a unit in individproperty.4 Th e National Housing Law (N 13.728) was introduced in 1968 by the governof Jorge Pacheco Areco who would in 1973 support the military coup dtat.5 A solution adopted by some cooperatives is paying the departing usesocial capital monthly during 10 years, enabling the new user to finance his enalong this time.

Biographical note:

Martin Delgado and Esteban Varela are architects living in Uruguay,

founding partners of RE Estudio de Arquitectura the branch of

SUPERSUDACA in Montevideo since 2006. Martin is professor at

Design Atelier Danza at Facultad de Arquitectura de Montevideo s ince

2005. Invited professor at C+ (Mexico DF), UBA (Buenos Aires) and

ULBRI (Blumenau). Esteban is Professor at Design Atelier Sprechman

and Media Lab at Facultad de Arquitectura, UDELAR from 2003 to

2005. He has been Director of Architecture in Social Development

Department of Uruguay since 2009.

Human chain

during the pouring

of a concrete roof

slab.

cooperative who are often women.

Martn Delgado: Do you consider it possible to extrapolate the model to

other social contexts?

Gustavo Gonzlez: Housing as a right is the best investment for any

democratic society, by which I do not mean a socialist one. In Cuba, for

instance, housing is individual. Collective property with state subsidy has

nothing to do with socialism or the third world. In welfare societies such

as Sweden, very good collective ownership projects exist.

The global economic crisis caused by the real estate bubble in theUS demands rethinking the game we are playing. Nowadays states

are saving companies from going bankrupt, effectively socializing the

losses. Cooperatives are a way of investing collectively in a responsible

manner. #Gustavo Gonzlez:When a first generation user leaves the cooperative,

the collective returns his social capital to him, namely the hours of

mutual help he provided and the capital he contributed, but the dwelling

remains in hands of the cooperative and the community chooses the

new member who can contribute the same social capital. Nowadays a

frequent problem for cooperatives created many years ago is that after

many years the social capital is too high for someone with a normal job

to afford. A solution might be for the state to subsidize the new member

and for the cooperative to transfer this money to the departing user. This

would ensure that people who enter the system belong to a social sector

that deserves the dwelling.5

Martn Delgado: How is the architectural project of cooperatives

managed? How has the design evolved?

Gustavo Gonzlez:Architects at the Institutes of Technical Assistance

execute the design; multi-disciplinary teams are created expressly to

assist cooperatives through a collectively negotiated design process.

As concerns design, there were two prominent periods. The 1970s were

the years of housing developments, large mid-rise concrete buildings and

very austere architecture on very big lots with little green or recreational

spaces and minimum outdoor furnishing. Since the 1980s smaller

developments have been built, enhancing social and spatial aspects.

The focus was on new smaller-scale volumes, providing outdoor areas

with green spaces creating more enjoyable environments. Progress was

also made on a typological level, with proposals that could support units

of 1, 2 or 3 bedrooms.

Esteban Varela:To what extent have standardization and systematization

in construction been explored?

Gustavo Gonzlez: In the second period there was access to new

technologies, for instance water insulated concrete roofs, expanded

polystyrene panels with electro-welded meshes and projected mortar.

Standardization has largely centered on a few construction elements

(e.g., brick tiles, concrete joists) associated with building systems based

on brick. A key condition in the systematization of building components

is that they can be produced and transported by members of the

an Varela:

does the notion of Mutual AidandUser Cooperative1imply?

vo Gonzlez:Mutual Aid is a housing solution for those sectors of

ty that dont have ways to save money but do have the capacity

rk to build their dwelling and to pay off a low interest mortgage

This self-construction system is generally associated with a Users

ein which the family acquires the right to use the dwelling and the

erative, as a whole, administers a collective property. 3

Delgado:What are the fundamentals of Collective Property?

vo Gonzlez: Time has shown that no solution to the housing

t in Latin America is possible without state subsidies. That means

one pays taxes so every family without proper housing can get

ate support of Mutual Aid Cooperatives consists of several tax

ptions, the provision of the land and the aforementioned bank loan

ing.

ery important to understand that collective property is still property.

group of families come together to build their dwellings, these

g to everyone and no one can go out in the market to sell their

nit because it is the product of everyones work. There must be an

ational aspect which teaches: If society satisfies a basic need no

dual may profit therefrom. This is the basic idea that divides the two

pts: housing as a good and housing as a right.

an Varela:Cooperativism has been strongly linked with trade unions

eft-wing groups. Does the Mutual Aidmodel only take place within

ambiences?

vo Gonzlez: Education and political organization, in the broadest

, have been very important for the model because they have

nced the capacity of self-management in cooperatives. Without

zation and efficiency in managing and construction nothing

e achieved. Members in cooperative s need to build, and build well.

must also operate as a company, buying materials and managing

es. For this, people undergo training and broaden their horizons.

Delgado:Can you explain why collective propertyand the notion

erwere legally introduced under a right-wing governmen? 4

vo Gonzlez:The Userss system is pragmatic: if poor people are

a house and they cannot pay to maintain it, its wasted money.

gh common property, public investment is protected by preventing

eneficiary from selling the dwelling on the real estate market. The

avoids the trap of people making money only to turn around and

nd housing again. It protects the investment, even from a c apitalist

beral-economic point of view.

an Varela: How is the concept of collective property made

atible with the dynamics of the real estate market?


11/13

Pablo Corvaln : Within the enigma of what is to come in

ear future and in a post-cr isis, post-capi tal ist ci ty si tuation,

ms that in Latin America, particular ly as regards col lective

s, we are somehow used to this cr isis condi tion. Is there

ing worth saving?

n dro A rav ena :What Urban Age does in London, Rockefel ler

Y, or reports l ike The Economist 2007 do when they refer

e p lanets urban population rates r ising over the 50%

hold is referenced to Asia and Afr ica. Latin America deal t

hat quest ion and did so in a very speci fic way, wi th a rate

ban population as high as 85% and this achieved through a

ess that star ted 40 years ago. Not only d id this take place

ar ly as the US and Europe but i t was done, speci fical ly in

with hardly any money. In contrast, Europe achieved these

nization figures with more resources per fami ly. Thus the

fic question we deal t w i th 40 years ago was how to provide

ng for roughly 10,000 US$ per fami ly for those moving

rural areas to ci ties. Having wrestled with this question

er this now al lows us to say we have knowledge the rest

e wor ld does not. This premise should al low us to export

-how.

ando Prez O.:Theres a case that in Chi le weve forgotten,

h is Operacin Si tio [Si te Operation] t hat happened in the

960s. This arose dur ing a very fast urbanization process,

strong rural immigration, and was carr ied out wi t h way less

urces than what we have today. That is, the 2 condi tions

n dro s tat ed, pu she d to t hei r pea k. By the tim e, pe ople wer e

ing big areas in the per iphery and so, the Ministry reacted

g look, we cannot g ive you a house. What we can do is buy

propr iate this land, make the urbanization out l ines and give

p lot. Thats al l we can do at the time. Pol i tical opposi tion

ronical ly cal l ing i t Chalk Operation: Have you seen this?

ad of housing people, theyre g iving them chalk, theyre

g lots over soi l ! As fool ish as i t may seem, this operation

sponsib le for the comparatively successful urbanization of

extensive areas of the Santiago de Chi le per iphery. This

no minor accompl ishment for i t gave people something

high-valued today: an important p iece of land, wi th i ts

deed. At the same time areas were planned and lots were

d, streets were being defined, that is to say, what remained

he whole urban base-structure needed to connect to the

ci tys networks. You could then carry on with sewerage or

electr ici ty because there was a sense of order. Each person

knew and this was also a c ol lective agreement what was his

own; fi rst they bui l t a sha ck or two on their land, then came sel f-

construction or they obtained subs id ies, etc. This demonstrates

what Alejandro was saying; al l I m giving you are tracings on the

ground, but what these tracings do is si tuate peoples posi tion

in the ci ty, connect them and provide coordinates.

Ale jan dro Ara ven a: Let me elaborate this point because I find

i t very relevant. Tracing with chalk on the ground, which costsnear ly nothing actual ly costs what t he land is worth is relevant

because i t approaches doing those things a fami ly alone cannot

do wel l . If there is not enough money to do everything, fami l ies

must establ ish pr ior i ties, doing fi rst what cannot be done wel l

ind ividual ly. The layout of an urban development f al ls under the

category of things that, i f done spontaneously, do not turn out

wel l . This is important because the value of the house you bui ld

on that p lot largely depends on the value of the neighborhood;

i f the neighborhood is worth nothing, that house wi l l be worth

nothing. If one proposes that the core of a housing project is

to increase i ts value over time, the fact that i t is an investment

and not an expense should be seen as a major attr ibute which is

what we propose in ELEMENTAL.

In Latin America is that we hav e deal t wi th this problem bef

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Supersudaca Reports#1 Final08