latin american architecture at MoMA
In 2007, as part of a class on museum exhibitions under Barry Bergdoll (Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at MoMA), I made a presentation on the interest that MoMA’s Architecture and Design Department had had on Latin American architecture. Strangely enough, this got picked up by the New York Times. Although I agree that lack of knowledge about the architecture of the region continues to be “a problem for the architecture department,” I was quoting Janet Henrich, acting curator of Architecture in the late 1930s and early 1940s. In 1942 Henrich was involved in what a year later would become the famed Brazil Builds. Back then Europe seemed closer, even during the war:
I certainly think a good South American show could be very popular, but most of the discussion I have heard about such shows during the last year has been based on a slight misconception. Our STOCKHOLM BUILDS has been used as an example of how a South American show could be done. Actually although GEKS [Kidder-Smith] is an architect, he did not have a great deal of the information needed to put the show together in an interesting fashion. Betty Mock did a great deal of research and fortunately it was possible for research on Stockholm and Swedish building to be done here –which would not be true, I am afraid, in the case of South America which is very badly documented.
Janet Henrich, 1942
I address MoMA’s relationship to Latin American architecture in part of my dissertation. I gave an updated version of this presentation in Montevideo, Uruguay, at the Universidad de La República, in Dec. 2009.
Vilamajó_Facultad de Ingeniería