Architecture in Peru has a huge range of achitecture that starts from functional ancient structures to colonial plazas to modern-day buildings. Modern architecture began with the Bauhaus movement which writer, David Stephens, explains to us in this article.
Peru is a country blessed with some of the world’s greatest man-made structures. UNESCO lists 13 World Heritage sites to be found here from the magnificent Machu Picchu – itself one of the new seven wonders of the world – to the historic city centers of Lima, Arequipa, and Cusco with their grand examples of Spanish colonial architecture. But what of Peru’s modern architecture, the buildings that flash by us as we speed into work?
I am fortunate to live in a Barranco apartment built by one of Peru’s eminent contemporary architects, the late Jose Garcia Bryce. One of my neighbors is a colleague of his, the equally renowned professor of architecture and retired politician, Senor Javier Sota Nadal. We arrange to meet on one of those grey, misty days, his apartment like mine, looking out across the ocean and the modern cityscape that is Lima.
As we sip our coffee, Javier tells me about his life as an architect – how he decided at the age of 15 that this would be his chosen career – and the important influences that shaped his profession in the years following the Second World War, in particular the Bauhaus ideas of ‘integrated architecture’ personified by its founder, Walter Gropius (1883-1969), and in art by such visionaries as Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky.
How The Bauhaus Movement began
The Bauhaus movement, as it came to be known, originated in the German cities of Dessau and Weimar, shortly after the Great War of 1914-18, but soon found its way to South America following the Second World War. Essentially, it was an artistic avant-garde rebellion against the false romanticism and sentimentality of the past, a modernist and visionary approach to the arts that stressed the integration of science and aesthetics in the service of humanity. A building, in other words, had to be both useful and beautiful, the architect no longer just an artist but a technician with an obligation to society. Gone was the intricate ornamentation that you see in the Gothic cathedrals of colonial Peru, to be replaced by balanced forms and abstract shapes. Straight lines – in other words – were in.
Bauhaus comes to South America
Outstanding Bauhaus students and professors soon found their way to South America. Some stayed for a while and on several occasions produced different initiatives that led to extraordinary structural transformations. In this aspect, they supported the most diverse artistic orientations. One of the first was Alexandre Altberg, who had studied at the Bauhaus in Germany, and in 1932 arrived from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, fleeing the persecution of the Jews. Once installed there, he edited the base magazine, among other publications, and organized the first Tropical Architecture Salon in 1933. He spent the rest of his life in Brazil. The influence of Bauhaus ideas in South America can be found in the building of the Parador Ariston restaurant (1947) in the Argentine city of Mar del Plata and in the design of the German embassy in Buenos Aires (1968), designed by Walter Gropius and Amancio Williams. Other projects were carried out by architects such as Grete Stern, Paul Linder, and Alexandre Altberg, with the aim of translating Bauhaus principles into a humanist modern design. Of significance to Peru was the arrival of Walter Gropius, who traveled to Lima in 1953 with his wife and other luminaries.
Bauhaus did not only have an influence, however, on the kinds of buildings constructed at this time but also on the establishment of university schools of architecture. A significant contribution to this development was the 1947 Pan-American Architecture Meeting in Peru. Representatives of the architecture training institutions of Lima, Tucumán, Montevideo, and Santiago de Chile met in Lima. Javier Sota Nadal, as Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at the National University of Engineering (UNI) in the mid-1980s, played a prominent role in the establishment and development of Schools of Architecture in the country.
Bauhaus’ influence on Lima
The Bauhaus movement had a significant influence on what we see in Lima today. Following the Second World War, the historical center of the capital – the Cercado de Lima – experienced simultaneous processes of deterioration, conservation, and transformation. When you wander through its streets, you will see a combination of neo-colonial and republican architecture eclectically mixed with some major architectural projects which came about during the country’s golden age of modernist public architecture initiated from the mid-20th century. Examples of Lima’s entry into the modern movement include the remodeling of Lima’s Plaza de Armas and the widening of streets such as Tacna and Wilson Avenues. Despite initial government reluctance, all of these projects were backed by a state that enthusiastically focused on planning for over two decades in the design of its cities and the construction of large neighborhood units, such as the experimental housing project (PREVI), conceived in Lima in the mid-1960s. This initiative was the brainchild of the President of Peru, Fernando Belaunde Terry – an architect by profession – who in 1965 kick-started a series of consultations to explore new ways to control the flow of immigrants to the city and prevent the spread of self-construction projects in informal neighborhoods.
Lima’s Experimental Housing Project (PREVI)
This architecturally experimental district was collectively designed by a generation of radical avant-garde architects who converged on Lima in the late 1960s. It was a pioneering attempt to reconcile the conflicting forces of informal growth and top-down planning. PREVI was the product of exceptional conditions. In the 1960s, the population of Lima was growing so fast that government housing schemes were proving to be woefully inadequate. Instead, people were building their own homes in informal barriadas, which today account for more than half of the city. In 1966, an international competition was held in conjunction with the UN to devise a solution to the city’s housing problem. The list of participants reads like a roll call of the 1960s’ avant-garde: James Stirling, Aldo van Eyck, Charles Correa, and Christopher amongst others. In all there were 13 international teams and 13 Peruvian – it was an architect’s Olympiad of sorts. Despite its problems – some would say too many architects, too many designs – many believe there are valuable lessons to be learned today.
Jason McGurk, writing in the architectural journal, Domus (2011), is optimistic that projects such as PREVI can provide ways forward. For him, PREVI marked the shift from a dogmatic modernist approach to housing the poor to one that capitalizes on the evolutionary, organic nature of informal settlements, an ethos he believes can be mainlined by a new generation of socially motivated architects. Perhaps Peru will see a resurgence in ideas such as these, and we will see the creation of social housing that is affordable, regulated, functional, and – let’s not forget – with a pleasing aesthetic.
The meaning of Bauhaus
So far, we’ve been talking about the built house – Bauhaus comes from inverting the German word hausbau or building of a house – and it seems to me that it is not just what you live in but where you live, context to the proximity of your house to open spaces, your workplace, the views from your windows. I am not sure Bauhaus gave enough attention to this. However, Walter Gropius and the Peruvian architects influenced by the Bauhaus movement were right to address issues of function and aesthetics within the context of affordable social housing.
I live in an apartment that in many ways embodies the principles of Bauhaus and the vision of its architect, Jose Garcia Bryce. It has straight, but not necessarily parallel lines, it is functional and yet possesses much that is pleasing to the eye. It also possesses a fine view of the ocean, something I share with my neighbor, the architect, Senor Javier Sota Nadal.
I can live with that.
Cover photo: Bauhaus-Goethe-Institut Goethe.de
