Cidades verticais: habitação de grande escala na América Latina 1929-1979

Abstract

This work aims to advance knowledge about the high-rise large-scale housing complexes built in Latin America throughout the twentieth century: its origins, relation with contemporary cities, mapping of the the most representative works and the comparative critical analysis of some of these works. The central hypothesis of the thesis is that such buildings are more suited to the current Latin American cities than at the time they were built, being needed that their present conditions become better known. To examine the proposed hypothesis were selected thirty works of reference, designed from 1945 to 1979 and set in nine countries in Latin America where this type of housing was adopted: Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. The work has been divided into two main parts. Part One brings an approach from the historical and historiographical points of view of the subject of high-rise large-scale housing, tracing its origins from Europe, its hybridization with the North American urban researches, extending until its adaptation and adoption in several countries of Latin America from the 1940s on, reaching distinct meanings of those acquired by these buildings elsewhere. Once knowing both the historical conditions as the historiographical construction responsible for the enhancement and subsequent criticism of the studied housing typology, Part Two assesses the current conditions of use of those reference works, being twelve of them subject of critical comparative analysis. Despite the mystique that surrounds the high-rise large-scale residential buildings, their potential is not at all asleep, and its current revaluation can be identified, together with the idea of compact cities and emerging concepts of urban densification. It is also an aim to identify which are the main factors to be considered in the assessment of high-rise large-scale urban collective housing in order to make the most of the potential of these architectures, but avoiding at the same time its possible negative effects.