In 2019, the world is commemorating the centennial of the Bauhaus. The legendary school is considered the most influential academy of architecture, design, and art of the 20th century.
Universidad ORT Uruguay . Pablo Frontini, an architect and professor at the School of Architecture at Universidad ORT Uruguay , shares his thoughts on the influence of the Bauhaus in Uruguay.
The Bauhaus has had a profound influence on the world, and in many cases that influence remains relevant today. Uruguay is no exception.
In many ways, the fundamental philosophical, aesthetic, and architectural principles championed by the leading Bauhaus teachers underlie the design of much of the modern architecture that defines the identity of numerous urban spaces and facades in our cities.
Precision, economy, rigor, and universality are among the core values taught by the German school, which architects in Uruguay during the second half of the 20th century had embraced from the very start of their training.
Until the emergence of Editorial Infinito in Buenos Aires in 1954—one of the first publishers to focus on the visual arts, architecture, and design by publishing texts in Spanish—the essential concepts of the European avant-garde could be found only in their original versions, primarily in German. This meant that those magazines were studied primarily in visual, constructive, and formal terms, pushing theoretical and discursive aspects into the background—though not entirely ignoring them. This definitively shaped the aesthetic education of many of the professionals working at that time and left an unmistakable modern imprint on the construction of the country’s cities.
On the other hand, Uruguay’s geographical and economic situation compelled the architects of the time to approach their projects holistically, just as they had been taught at the Bauhaus. They gradually filled in the urban fabric block by block—with a keen awareness of the era and respect for the city—gradually shaping some of the highest-quality urban developments in Latin America. The process of designing the buildings was thorough and only possible through a generalist education, with a strong cultural focus on Europe in the first half of the 20th century and its direct offshoot: the United States in the post-World War II era. It is also from this perspective—which positioned art as a response to the needs of society—that the significance of the Bauhaus for Uruguay’s finest architects becomes very clear when it came to shaping their aesthetic and philosophical outlook.
By way of example, and although it is impossible to directly apply the design criteria that underpinned the architectural works created in their personal capacity by the school’s three directors—Walter Gropius, Hannes Meyer, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe—a close look at Montevideo reveals a strong influence from them, particularly from the first and the third.
The Bauhaus was in operation from 1919 to 1933. Its universal influence will endure for centuries.
Pablo Frontini