Three modern experiments. The design process of the Positano building
Keywords:
Luis García Pardo, Positano building, Modern architecture in Uruguay, collective housing, technological innovation, complexity, contradiction.Abstract
The Positano building, designed during the 1950s by the architect Luis García Pardo, marked a milestone in the architecture of modern housing in Uruguay. The architect –and real estate developer at the same time– designed a series of projects, identifying three fully documented projects. This series has a strong modern and experimental character, expressed in the general form, implantation, typological development, structural system and the facade design. The last project, carried out in association with the young architect Adolfo Sommer Smith, began to be built in 1959. The series of projects reveals a growing process of “abstraction”, formal as well as conceptual. This will lead to simplifying forms and reducing elements; and at the same time designing more complex devices, capable of solving different functions. Starting from the search and classification of original documents –plans, photographs, articles, among others–, this work attempts to try out a project interpretation, exposing the architects’ main concerns and strategies. The essay seeks to recognize repetitions, iterations, doubts and certainties of an intense process, which crossed the borders of the discipline.