Plastic Modernity: Art, Sculpture, and Cinema in Latin American Architecture

This class addresses and discusses the various explorations and expressions of plastic integration throughout 20th-century Latin America in order to understand the reasons behind them, the cross-influences that existed, and the innovations that ensued. This includes: plastic integration: the application of art to architecture; debates surrounding “socialist realism” and the appropriateness of realistic or abstract art for modern architecture; artist as architect: the artist acting as an architect, landscape architect, and/or planner; architect as artist: the architect that acts as a painter, sculptor, etc.; monuments: works that straddle between being architectural or sculptural; architect and artist collaborations: works which result from the close collaboration between architects and artists; and cinematic space: works which use cinema to express or highlight spatial, architectural, and/or urban works or their character.