Papers by Alejandro Lapunzina
Defining the Urban Condition: Accelerating Change in the Geography of Power, 1995
This paper proposes a reading of the faqade of Maison Curutchet, a significant yet largely unstud... more This paper proposes a reading of the faqade of Maison Curutchet, a significant yet largely unstudied building designed by Le Corbusier in 1949, as a metaphor or a condenser of the architect’s ideas on urban-planning and painting. It also proposes that in this building Le Corbusier proved to be (contrary to what is often asserted) one of the most contextually urban oriented architects of the twentieth century.
The design of buildings located in areas that surround the central core of cities is becoming, as... more The design of buildings located in areas that surround the central core of cities is becoming, as we approach the end of the twentieth century, one of the most critical problems for architecture and its related disciplines. The design studio is an appropriate environment for developing strategies and tools focused on the architectural and urbanistic implications of working in peripheral areas. This has been the dominant thematic of recent design exercises developed in design studios at the University of Illinois' Study Abroad Program in Versailles. This paper presents the theoretical frame of reference and some recent examples produced in these design studios.
LC. Revue de recherches sur Le Corbusier
LC150+ is an exhibition of RT+Q Architects' private collection of nearly one-hundred and sixty mo... more LC150+ is an exhibition of RT+Q Architects' private collection of nearly one-hundred and sixty models of buildings and projects designed by Le Corbusier. 1 Originally an in-house office project, two years ago the collection was publicly exhibited for the first time in the office's hometown, Singapore. The event acted as a thunder that triggered the rapid and now incessant growth of the collection. Shortly thereafter, it also began travelling, first to neighboring Malaysia and Indonesia, and now through Europe, where it will be displayed in several countries before it travels to Canada and the United States towards the end of the northern hemisphere's summer. The Illinois' program of overseas studies at Barcelona-El Vallès hosted at the Escola Tècnica Superior d'Arquitectura del Vallès (ETSAV) and the ETSAV itself joined efforts to display the LC150+ traveling exhibition between February 20 and March 6, 2023. Organizing the exhibit was also a propitious opportunity for convening a small and informal, but insightful and enthusiastic mini conference which, entitled "Five Brief Reflections on Le Corbusier's work," was attended by Rene Tan and other members of his team, as well as by Brigitte Bouvier, Director of the Fondation Le Corbusier. 2 The collection is certainly heterogeneous. All models are at different scales and are built at very diverse range of development and detail. Some are small and rather schematic (for instance, the Pavilion Suisse, Villa Le Sextant, and Maison Fueter, to name only three), but others are quite large and highly sophisticated, many of them with removable parts or built in fragments that permit seeing the buildings' interior in either plan or section. The Villa Savoye spliced in four quadrants, a one-half model of the Asile Flottante, and a partially sectioned model of the Church at Firminy are three examples among a constellation of Le Corbusier's built projects that the collection recreates through carefully crafted, digitally printed models. In fact, most of the models are built through 3D printing technology, but the older models in the collection (generally of houses from the 1920s) are built with traditional techniques and materials. These older models are nevertheless charming, proudly displaying the aging of the white board with which they were built more than twenty years ago as well as the imperfections of being hand-crafted by young architectural interns. This is an important aspect of the collection: it is not the work of professional modelbuilders who created models to be displayed in museums or as part of scholarly-oriented exhibitions. Instead, it is the work of dozens of young motivated and engaged architectural interns who take it as an opportunity to continue learning, often with contagious passion for being part of a project that goes beyond the daily routines of learning the ins-and-outs of the profession. While heterogeneous, the collection is impressive in every sense. In fact, the impression of seeing in only single room more than one-hundred-and-fifty models of Le Corbusier's buildings and projects is striking. In effect, visitors can virtually see the complete work of Le Corbusier at a glance, in a linear succession of fifty cardboard pedestals (cleverly designed by RT+Q) on top of which all-white models of over one-hundred built and unbuilt projects are organized in a somewhat chronological order, from the early work at La Chaux des Fonds to the Church of Firminy completed long after Le Corbusier's death. The display also contains formulations like the DomIno concept, non-SECCIÓN / LE CORBUSIER CONTEMPORAIN
Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), 1994
This project for the Matteson Public Library was developed through the utilization of three archi... more This project for the Matteson Public Library was developed through the utilization of three architectural language elements that defined the varied spaces required by the competition program: a large, light roof floating over the building, a system of brass columns defining a rhythmically punctuated space, and a non-structural wall creating the outer skin of the building. The poetically inflected relationship between these three elements articulates and defines the spaces of the library, generating high spatial tension at the corner of the site. As expected, the Community Meeting Room occupies this prominent urban position.
Le Corbusier, 50 years later. Conference proceedings., 2015
Resumen: La relación de Le Corbusier con el continente americano abarca virtualmente toda su vida... more Resumen: La relación de Le Corbusier con el continente americano abarca virtualmente toda su vida activa. Plasmada en una veintena de viajes trasatlánticos y en un conjunto heterogéneo de propuestas, proyectos y obras, esta relación estuvo marcada por frecuentes malentendidos y desencuentros que condicionaron la concreción de algunos de sus proyectos. No obstante, el valor de su obra americana, representada por dos obras extraordinarias –la Casa Curutchet en Argentina y el Carpenter Center en Estados Unidos— y por una serie de proyectos notables que no llegaron a materializarse, merece un tratamiento específico. Este artículo está dedicado a presentar una síntesis de la relación y recíproco desencuentro entre Le Corbusier y el continente americano. : The relationship between Le Corbusier and the American continent virtually encompasses his entire professional life. Embodied by about twenty transatlantic trips and a series of heterogeneous projects and buildings, this relationship wa...
... of the population. The Roman Amphitheater at Italica, in southern Spain, was the largest outs... more ... of the population. The Roman Amphitheater at Italica, in southern Spain, was the largest outside the Italian peninsula, surpassed only by Rome's Coliseum and theamphitheaters of Capua and Pozzoli. The beginning of the ...
arq: architectural research quarterly, 2001
In 1951, Le Corbusier designed a funerary chapel in Caracas to honour the memory of Colonel Carlo... more In 1951, Le Corbusier designed a funerary chapel in Caracas to honour the memory of Colonel Carlos Delgado-Chalbaud, the recently assassinated president of the Venezuelan military junta. This enigmatic project – unknown until now – provides an interesting insight into Le Corbusier's use of architectural references and their layers of symbolic meaning. Most documents have mysteriously disappeared, but the few remaining have allowed the project to be reconstructed rather accurately.
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Papers by Alejandro Lapunzina