Luis Fernández-Galiano   Latin America celebrates in 2010 the bicentennial of its independence. The Bolivarian Venezuela begins the commemorative cycle on 19 April, Argentina will follow on 25 May, Colombia on 20 July, Mexico and Chile on 16 and 18 September. These last four

Miquel Adrià   The richness of contemporary Mexican architecture comes from its diversity. Diversity as an asset, not as motley supply without identity, but as interwoven generations, styles and affiliations. While in other Latin American countries there is a promi

Teodoro González de León   Mexico   Built in the campus of the Autonomous University of Mexico, in the capital of the country, the new University Museum of Contemporary Art completes the cultural complex that constitutes the second phase of the university campus. Located on the side of

Taller | Mauricio Rocha   Mexico   The New Building for the School of Plastic Arts of the Autonomous University Benito Juárez, located in the city of Oaxaca, takes up a plot of some 13,000 square meters, close to the main access to the campus, between the space occupied by an old pelo

Michel Rojkind   Mexico   Located on the outskirts of the city of Toluca, at the edge of an anonymous indrustrial area filled with monothonous prismatic buildings, this is the first museum of chocolate built by the Swiss company Nestlé. Located next to the factory, the new bu

El Cielo Arquitectos   Mexico   A roof leak and the vibrarion of the structure were the starting point of complete project to refurbish and extend a single-family house located in a residential area of the Mexican capital. The intervention proposed the definition of a new access to

Jorge Pérez Jaramillo   Colombia is a diverse country; plural map of cultural expressions, contrast between clashing loves and feelings, civilization and culture; and a reality of violence and conflict that is the consequence of a society that evolves with feudal vices and

El Equipo Mazzanti   Colombia   The competition called for the construction of a public library on the outskirts of Medellín. The main goal was to design an infrastructure able to fulfill the educational and recreational functions described in the brief and favor social integration

Juan Manuel Peláez   Colombia   On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Empresas Públicas de Medellín (public companies of Medellín) the entity donated eighty million dollars to the Town Hall for the construction of ten public schools and the refurbishment of the 132 existin

Alejandro Piñol, Germán Ramírez, Miguel Torres, Carlos Meza   Colombia   Located in the Colombian department of Casanare, the new Public Library of Villanueva has been raised with gabion stone walls put together with boulders from the region. With a very tight budget, the construction of the building has been possible tha

Husos   Colombia   The project is the result of a private commission from a small but growing design company: Taller Croquis (Croquis workshop). At the same time, it was the first intervention of a plan for the environmental preservation of the city of Cali, promoted b

Roberto Segre   Upon reaching the first decade of the century, the political, social, economic and cultural analysis of Brazil comes out positive, despite the existing contradictions. Since his election in 2003, president Lula dominates the political panorama with t

FGMF Arquitetos   Brazil   The construction of the FDE Public Schools is part of a program promoted by the Government of the State of São Paulo. All the schools have in common a construction system based on the use of industrialized components that facilitate the construction

Triptyque   Brazil   The new headquarters of the Brazilian advertising company Loducca go up near the São Paulo Gardens. Located on an avenue of intense traffic, the building stands out with a complex enclosure that acts as an element of protection from the strong acoust

Isay Weinfeld   Brazil   Located in a residential área of Rio de Janeiro, the building accommodates a cultural center for the Jewish Congregation of Brazil, a center that provides a space for the debate and study of different aspects of Jewish culture in the fields of litera

Carla Juaçaba   Brazil   The Tres Picos nature reserve, located in Nova Friburgo, a Brazilian municipality in the mountains of the interior of Rio Bonito, provides the background for this small house devised as the residence-retreat of the director of the Museu de Imagens do

Alberto Petrina   Even the most concise analysis of current Argentinian architecture requires a look at its modern genetics, a good part of its conceptual formulation and technical development having its origins there. A mix of diverse but wisely integrated influences

AFRa, Fernández Prieto y asociados arquitectos   Argentina   Located in San Vicente, in the province of Buenos Aires, the Juan and Eva Perón Mausoleum is part of a heritage recovery plan which includes the refurbishment of the ‘Quinta 17 de Octubre’ – the summer house of the presidential couple –, turning it i

Diéguez-Fridman Arquitectos   Argentina   Located in a residential neighborhood of Buenos Aires, the building accommodates eight two-floor apartments which are accessed through a free-flowing ground floor that is completely open to the exterior and that has circulation paths for vehicles and

GGMPU Arquitectos   Argentina   The extension of the Emilio Caraffa Provincial Museum of Fine Arts, located in the capital of Córdoba, brings together the neoclassical building, designed at the beginning of the 20th century by the Hungarian architect Johannes Dronfuss, and the rece

Rafael Iglesia   Argentina   The definition of the word quincha makes reference to a traditional construction system that uses cane, reed or similar materials to build walls, which are later covered with mud. In Argentina, the quincha is also the place where the family gathers t

Fernando Pérez Oyarzún   Since the year 1990, Children architecture has been receiving growing international attention. The wide publicity bestowed on the Chile Pavilion at the Universal Exposition of Seville in 1992 was among the initial signs of this phenomenon. The appear

Alberto Mozó   Chile   The new building of the company BIP Computers goes up in a residential área of the commune of Providencia, in Santiago Province. The plot assigned is located in a zone where the current construction codes allow building up to twelve heights, but the

Germán del Sol   Chile   In Puerto Natales, a city located in the southern end of Chile, between the Almirante Montt Gulf and the Última Esperanza Inlet, rises a hotel complex with a surface of some 5.000 square meters whose program is organized in three U-shaped pavilions,

Grupo Talca   Chile   At a distance of forty kilometers from the city of Villarica there is a small community of woodcutters formed by eleven families dedicated to the exploitation of local tree species (mañío, tepa and coigüe) and the harvesting of lands for their own su

Pezo von Ellrichshausen   Chile   This is both a huge and a small house. It doesn’t have extended rooms but a series of rooms that repeat themselves and some functions that are doubled according to traditional Chilean country life. The house is located in a small farm where, until no