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Cacti transformation from the primitive to the avant-garde: modern landscape architecture in Brazil and Mexico

2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 34; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14601176.2013.869094

1943-2186

Annette Condello,

Architecture, Modernity, and Design

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size AcknowledgementsI especially thank Christopher Vernon for his preliminary suggestions on this article and in-depth discussions about landscape architecture. An earlier version of this article was presented at the Architectural Elective Affinities Conference, European Architectural History Network (EAHN), Universidad de São Paulo, Brazil, and to the Landscape Architecture students at the University of Western Australia, March 2013. In São Paulo, I thank Carlos Warchavchik, Anna Sonia Rottenburg, and Thiago Catanoso for their generous hospitality. For their advice I thank Hilary Masters, Alexandra Keiser from the Archipenko Foundation and Susan K. Anderson from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Zeuler Lima, Luis Carranza, Keith Eggener, Eduardo Subirats and Francisco Gonzales de Canales. Thanks to John Dixon Hunt who offered comments on a version of this article and the anonymous referee. Lastly, thanks to Miranda Araujo and Pierina Camargo from the Lasar Segall Museum and Paulo Mauro de Aquino from the Gregori Warchavchik Archive.Notes1. Pietro Maria Bardi, The Tropical Gardens of Burle Marx (London: The Architectural Press, 1964), p. 14, and see Lauro Calvalcanti et al., Roberto Burle Marx: The Modernity of Landscape (Barcelona: ACTAR, 2011), p. 32.2. As a Russian emigré architect who left Italy after the First World War in search of new beginnings, Warchavchik settled in the tropical region of São Paulo to establish his rationalist/futurist practice and there would meet Mina Klabin.3. Kenneth Frampton, ‘In Search of the Modern Landscape’, in Denatured Visions: Landscape and Culture in the Twentieth Century, John Beardsley and Caroline Constant, et al. (New York: MOMA, 1994), pp. 43, 45; Valerie Fraser, Building the New World: Studies in the Modern Architecture of Latin America 1930–1960 (London, New York: Verso, 2000), p. 166; my translation of Jose Lira, Warchvachik: Fraturas da vanguard (São Paulo: Cosac Naify, 2011), p. 131. Also see Nancy Leys Stepan in Picturing Tropical Nature (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), note 36, p. 273.4. Italian émigré engineer and early modern architect Adamo Boari designed cactus gardens in Mexico. By 1917 Adamo Boari left Mexico City and returned to Italy to teach architecture at the University of Rome for a few years. Whether coincidence or consequence, between 1917 and 1920 Boari might have also imparted his ideas on merging ‘eastern forms with the west’ predicated upon the use of cacti as apt metaphors for modernism to Gregori Warchavchik, who studied in Rome at the same time. Not only did Boari appreciate the cactus in his designed landscapes but also the avant-garde painters as well because of its novelty. Annette Condello, ‘La arquitectura de Adamo Boari, Los palacios de gobierno y los conservatorios antes de la Revolucion Mexicana’, National University of Mexico (UNAM), 2004.5. Fowler is mentioned in Clive Bamford Smith’s Builders in the Sun: Five Mexican Architects (New York: Architectural Book Publishing Co., 1967), p. 33; and in Francisco González de Canales’ Experiments with Life Itself: Radical Domestic Architecture Between 1937 and 1959 (Barcelona: Actar, 2013). Keith Eggener also mentions her in the context of Juan O’Gorman’s work in Luis Barragan’s gardens of El Pedregal (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2001), p. 155.6. Lauro Cavalcanti, ‘Roberto Burle Marx: The Permanence of the Unstable’, in L. Cavalcanti et al. (eds), Roberto Burle Marx: The Modernity of Landscape (Cite de l’Architecture and Barcelona, New York: Actar, 2011), p. 32.7. Olivia de Oliveira mentions that Lina Bo integrated gardens into her architectural work in the same way as Burle Marx. O. de Oliveira, Subtle Substances: The Architecture of Lina Bo Bardi (Barcelona: Gustav Gili and Romana Guerra Editora Ltda, 2006), p. 119.8. Pedra Furada is considered one of the oldest human sites in the Americas. See ‘Pedra Furada, Brazil: Paleoindians, Paintings and Paradoxes’, in Athena Review, 3/2: peopling of the Americas, http://www.athenapub.com/10pfurad.htm, accessed 8 November 2013. And ‘The Art Rock of Pedra Furada’ http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/south_america/serra_da_capivara/pedra_furada/index.php, accessed 8 November 2013.9. As far as the types of paintings she saw exhibited in Brazil, such as Ana Malfatti’s India (1917), with cactus plants set along the coast, and do Amaral’s Abapuri (1929), with cactus plants thriving in the jungle, they might have been the obvious sources for her, but they too are devoid of built landscapes. Refer to Euler Sanderville, ‘Entre Rosas e cactos: Mina Warchavchik’, in Paisagensem Debate, No. 1, Outubro 2003, pp. 4–5.10. Anna Sonia Rottenburg, telephone conversation in São Paulo, 19 March 2013.11. Anna Sonia Rottenburg, telephone conversation in São Paulo, 19 March 2013.12. Renato Holmer Fiore, ‘Warchavchik e o manifesto de 1925’ in ARQ Texto, 2, 2002, Issue 1, p. 1.13. Jose Lira, Warchavchik: Fraturas da Vanguarda (2011), p. 203.14. Zilah Quezado Deckker, Brazil Built (2001), pp. 11 and 13.15. Rossana Vaccarino, ‘Brasilidade and the Modern Garden’ (2002), p. 221.16. Ibid., p. 221.17. See the drawing in Jose Lira, p. 381.18. Valerie Fraser cites Warchavchik. Valerie Fraser, Building the New World (2000), p. 167.19. Dorothée Imbert, ‘Parterres en l’air: Roberto Burle Marx and the Modernist Roof Garden’, in L. Cavalcanti et al. (eds), Roberto Burle Marx: The Modernity of Landscape (Cite de l’Architecture and Barcelona, New York: Actar, 2011), p. 225.20. See Pierto Maria Bardi, New Brazilian Art (New York, Washington, London: Praeger Publishers, 1970), p. 45.21. Nine years after the Interiors article applauded Klabin Warchavchik’s garden, it was republished in Habitat magazine (28 March 1956, pp. 40–41). See Geraldo Ferraz, Warchavchik e a introducao da nova arquitetura no Brasil, 1925–1940 (São Paulo, MASP, 1965).22. Published in Interiors journal, edited by Rudofsky, the article itself noted that in ‘composing’ Mrs Warchavchik’s garden ‘into a civilized albeit grandiose entity, she had to remove [the vigorous fantastic jungle of Brazil] rather than to add [to it]’. Mrs Warchavchik, ‘A well pruned garden — Brazilian style’, Interiors, 106/4, November 1946, p. 86.23. Refer to Patrizia Granziera, ‘Huaxtepec: The Sacred Garden of an Aztec Emperor’, in Landscape Research, 30/1, January 2005, p. 82.24. David Yetman, ‘The Cactus Metaphor’, in W. H Beezley (ed.), A Companion to Mexican History and Culture (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2011), p. 134.25. Ibid., p. 134.26. Patrizia Granziera, ‘Huaxtepec: The Sacred Garden of an Aztec Emperor’, in Landscape Research, 30/1, January 2005, p. 103.27. David Yetman, ‘The Cactus Metaphor’, p. 132.28. Refer to Samuel Y. Edgerton, ‘The Sixteenth-century Missionary Convent as “Theatre of conversion”’, in H. Schramm, L. Schwarte and J. Lazardzig (eds), Collection, Laboratory, Theater: Scenes of Knowledge in the 17th century (Berlin: Walter de GmbH & Co, 2005), pp. 394–425.29. As seen in the INBA Archives, Mexico City 2003–2004. Also see Annette Condello. ‘An American Architect in Mexico City (1900–1910): Adamo Boari, the Steinway Hall Group and the Pan-American Identity’, Planning History: Bulletin of the International Planning History Society, Great Britain, 2002, 24, pp. 8–17.30. Annette Condello, ‘La arquitectura de Adamo Boari, Los palacios de gobierno y los conservatorios antes de la Revolucion Mexicana’, National University of Mexico (UNAM), 2004.31. Annette Condello, ‘La arquitectura de Adamo Boari, Los palacios de gobierno y los conservatorios antes de la Revolucion Mexicana’, National University of Mexico (UNAM), 2004.32. Apparently, it was one of the first Brazilian paintings to be considered ‘surreal’ by Andre Breton.33. Clive Bamford Smith, Builders in the Sun: Five Mexican Architects (New York: Architectural Book Publishing Co., 1967), p. 33.34. Luis Carranza, Architecture as Revolution: Episodes in the History of Modern Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010), p. 138.35. David Yetman, ‘The Cactus Metaphor’, 2011, pp. 138–139. Curiously, the sap from the plant is an additive used in construction and cacti skeletons have also been used in construction as well.36. Barbara Kingsolver, The Lacuna (London: Faber & Faber, 2010), pp. 152–153.37. Styliane Philippou, ‘From Juan O’Gorman to Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo’, 360° Architecture, http://www.greekarchitects.gr, accessed 3 August 2012, pp. 6–7.38. Danilo de Marco, ‘Le gemelle di San Angel’, in Abitare, December 1997, p. 103.39. Keith Eggner, Luis Barragan’s Gardens of El Pedregal (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2001), p. 107.40. Clive Bamford Smith, Builders in the Sun: Five Mexican Architects (1967), p. 33. Other sources suggest that Fowler studied fine art and architecture at the University of Washington. Helen Fowler O’Gorman, The Anchora of Delta Gamma, Summer 1975, p. 15.41. According to Alexander Keiser, Archipenko met Segall in Dresden, Germany, in c. 1921–1923.42. Hilary Masters, Shadows on a Wall: Juan O’Gorman and the Mural in Patzcuaro (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, London: Eurospan, 2005), p. 17. Also see Juan O’Gorman, Autobiografia (Mexico: UNAM, 2007), pp. 143–144.43. See Helen O’Gorman, in E. Wallace Turok (ed.), Mexican Flowering Trees and Plants (Mexico City: Ammex Associados, 1961), p. 8.44. Francisco Gonzalez De Canales, Experiments with Life Itself: Radical Domestic Architecture Between 1937 and 1959 (Barcelona: ACTAR, 2012), pp. 124, 131.45. Helen Fowler O’Gorman, The Anchora of Delta Gamma, Summer 1975, p. 15.46. Victor Jimenez, Juan O’Gorman: Principio y fin delcamino (Mexico DF: Circulo de Arte, 1997), p. 26.47. Esther McCoy, ‘Mosaic Details from a House by Juan O’Gorman’, Arts & Architecture, 72/3, March 1955, p. 12.48. Quoted in Keith Eggener, Luis Barragan’s Gardens of El Pedregal, 2001, note 77, p. 155.49. Refer to Francisco Gonzales de Canales.50. Olivia de Oliveira, ‘Interview with Lina Bo Bardi’ in Lina Bo Bardi: Built Work, 2G, 23–24, 2003, p. 249.51. Antonella Gallo (ed.), Lina Bo Bardi Architetto (Venezia: Marsilio, 2004), p. 168.52. Michael Sledge, The More I Owe You (Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2010), p. 143.53. Zeuler Lima, ‘The Reverse of the Reverse: Another Modernism According to Lina Bo Bardi’, in On the Interpretation of Architecture. Applied Interpretation, 13/1, May, 2009, p. 1.54. By the 1960s Fowler O’Gorman noted that ‘cacti with hanging stems were often planted about the houses of poorer Mexicans’. Helen O’Gorman, in E. Wallace Turok (ed.), Mexican Flowering Trees and Plants (Mexico City: Ammex Associados, 1961), pp. 200–202.55. Brazil, for Eduardo Subirats, ‘has been always isolated from the rest of Latin America, and still is. This situation reduplicates the Portuguese isolation by the Spanish colonialism in Mexico since its independence’, e-mail correspondence, 26 October 2013.56. Anna Sonia Rottenburg, telephone conversation in São Paulo, 19 March 2013.