1st Edition

Radical Functionalism A Social Architecture for Mexico

By Luis E. Carranza Copyright 2022
228 Pages 50 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

228 Pages 50 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

228 Pages 50 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

Radical Functionalism: A Social Architecture for Mexico provides a complex and nuanced understanding of the functionalist architecture developed in Mexico during the 1930s. It carefully re-reads the central texts and projects of its main advocates to show how their theories responded to the socially and culturally charged Mexican context. These, such as architects Juan Legarreta, Juan O’Gorman,... Read more

Introduction: Polemical Functionalism: Functional Art or Artistic Building

1: Building Revolution: Mexican Architecture in the First Part of the Twentieth Century

2: Functionalism and Social Progress

3: Alter(n)ative Functionalism

4: Radical Functionalism

5: Between Art and Technology

6: Place, History, and (Local) Culture

7: Representation and Reception

8: The City in the Functionalist Imagination

Epilogue: Organic Functionalism

Translations:

"Artistic" Art and Useful Art

Presentation for the Sociedad de Arquitectos Mexicanos, 1933

Index

Biography

Luis E. Carranza is Professor of Architecture at Roger Williams University and Adjunct Associate Professor at the GSAPP at Columbia University. He obtained his BArch from the University of Southern California and PhD in Architectural History and Theory from Harvard University. His research and publications are centered on how social movements and their theoretical ideals manifest themselves through modern art and architecture in Latin America and Mexico in particular. His publications include Architecture as Revolution: Episodes in the History of Modern Mexico (2010), Modern Architecture in Latin America: Art, Technology, Utopia (with Fernando Lara, 2015), and Experiments in (Radical) Functionalism (2020).