User:User Wiki Max/School of Architecture, Design & Urbanism (University of Buenos Aires)

The Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism (FADU) is part of the University of Buenos Aires. It is headquartered on the campus of Ciudad Universitaria, a complex built in the 1960s and inspired by Le Corbusier's 1929 proposals.

It was founded in 1947 and the courses of Architecture, Graphic Design, Clothing and Textile Design, Industrial Design, Image and Sound Design and Lic. In Planning and Landscape Design are taught here.

History[edit]

At the time of its creation in 1901, with the name of "School of Architecture", the FADU was part of the Faculty of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences. As such, it worked within its own building, that of Peru 222/72/94, in the so-called Apple of Lights.

Since the years 1929-31 begin to question from the position of students, influenced by various publications of journals and voices of architects, teaching that was given in a traditional way and not giving enough space to these new trends from the old continent, trends both architectural and ideas more commonly calling "Modern Movement".

The background dates from a learning under the tutelage of the "fine arts" where learning was rigid and followed a certain "recipe" for making and applying architecture. These revolutionary ideas then come to stay and change the thinking of many students and some teachers who over time echoed these claims for a more flexible teaching and that could be chosen and promote various schools of thought.

The external and internal political events would come to delay the natural evolution of both architectural and pedagogical ideas of architecture.

The law nº 13045, approved in Deputies after rough debate, the 24 of September of 1947 and by the Senate three days later, created the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism (FAU) of the UBA. When the classes began in 1948, the first designated Dean was Ermete De Lorenzi, and the University gave the FAU a neighboring building, that of Alsina 673, to install some administrative offices and the Deanery.

After the overthrow of the government of Juan Domingo Perón, the University was intervened, and after 1956 succeeded as Deans of the Faculty of Architecture Alfredo Casares and Carlos Coire, opposing ideological positions (humanism and reformism). In 1957, to alleviate the lack of space for the growing faculty, the UBA acquired for Architecture the building of Avenida Independencia 3051, where the Asylum "Sweet Name of Jesus", of the Christian order of the Dominicans, had functioned since 1901.

Subsequently, the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism was again transferred to some sheds built in laminated wood for the Transport Pavilion of the Sesquicentennial Exhibition of the May Revolution (1960). They were on the premises of the current Municipal Exhibition Center on Avenida Figueroa Alcorta, adjacent to the Law School, and disappeared during a fire that destroyed them in 1966. At that time, the Dean was Horacio Pando, who was in charge when the Night of the Long Staffs was unleashed and the Federal Police entered the faculties of Buenos Aires, evicting students to the blows and attacking the authorities.

Because of this incident, the Faculty of Architecture had to be provisionally installed on the second floor of the new building of the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences in the University City, which was still under construction and had to be precariously enabled.

The University City arose among the urban ideas for Buenos Aires exhibited by Le Corbusier during his visit (1929), later contemplated in the Regulatory Plan of the City of Buenos Aires (1958).

The architectonic project was elaborated towards 1960 by the architects Eduardo Catalano, Horacio Caminos, Eduardo Sacriste and Carlos Picarel, equipment designated from an international background contest. Conceived a set of four large buildings, which would be delivered progressively to the faculties most damaged at that time in terms of space.

The first faculty to receive its building there was the Exact and Natural Sciences (Pavilions 1 and 2), which in 1966 ceded the second floor of Pavilion 2 to Architecture after the fire of the sheds of Figueroa Alcorta. Due to the precariousness of this situation, in 1971 the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism received -without- the Pavilion 3, which was originally reserved for the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters in order of priority. The other two projected buildings were never finished, although there were never any announcements to do so.

When in 1976 a coup d'état interrupted the democratic government and imposed a military dictatorship, the UBA was intervened and the new Dean of the FAU appointed was Héctor Corbacho, who also taught technical drawing at the Army Mechanics School, where he worked in In those years, one of the main clandestine centers for the arrest and disappearance of political opponents between 1976 and 1983. In 2005, it was estimated that in the period of the dictatorship, the Armed Forces and the Police detained and disappeared 110 people from the community of the Faculty, among teachers, students and non-teachers.

Meanwhile, the current and final headquarters of the FADU was slowly completed over the years. For 1985, already in democracy again, the rector of the UBA Francisco Delich created the Common Basic Cycle, that allowed the massive entrance to the University; and Pavilion 3 became one of its main venues. At the same time, new careers were established, such as Industrial Design, Graphic Design, Clothing Design, etc. while Bernardo Dujovne was the Normalizing Dean. In 1986 Juan Manuel Borthagaray was designated as dean, who would remain in this post for a second term, until 1994.

In 1986 the University Habitat Secretariat of the FADU designed an Urbanization Plan in which Mederico Faivre, Carlos Maffeis, Maria Cecilia Ceim, Mario Sacco and other architects participated, but little and nothing was done: in 1988 the new access was built the FADU with staircase and commercial premises.

To this was added an integral reform of the building, which was developed between 1986 and 1988 and signified its completion: different dependencies were relocated, floors 3 and 4 were allocated to new careers and the mezzanine was finished (whose work had been abandoned and unfinished since the previous decade).

In 1992 another modification occurred that affected the external appearance of Pavilion 3, when the cement sunshades were removed from the façade, due to the corrosion they showed due to the lack of proper maintenance and the poor quality of their prefabrication. During the period 1996-2006, Bernardo Dujovne returned to work as Dean of the FADU, then succeeded by Jaime Sorín.

In 2005 a bridge was started to reach a future coastal park, the iron structure was abandoned until the present time without being terminated due to legal issues that involve the transformation of the projected park into an Ecological Reserve.

Building[edit]

The building designed by Catalano and Caminos within the master plan for University City that never materialized, fits within the architecture of the most orthodox Modern Movement. The headquarters of the FADU does not make concessions to regional architectures or traditions in the traditional aesthetics of Buenos Aires, and can be framed within the International Style very widespread in the 50s, and within which worked Catalano, resident in the United States from 1944

The structure, made entirely of reinforced concrete, is characterized by leaving this material in view, and expresses its capabilities both resistant and plastic. The building was designed with almost total symmetry, and is generated by a central courtyard that takes three levels of height, and which balconean successive floors and mezzanines. At the level of the third level, a grid of beams forms a network of skylights that let in natural light, bathing this central space. In the basement, the space of the central patio is occupied by a great classroom that also works improvised as a sports court, and there are often talks and public debates. From the third floor, it is not possible to access the Central Patio space.

The only element that breaks the general symmetry of the building is the main access, which was not designed by Catalano and Caminos, but was added at the end of the 1980s, and is given laterally by the north side, through an outdoor platform with a staircase, where an artisan fair and the sale of useful materials for students work informally. This staircase leads to the main doors, which face the empty space of the unfinished Pavilion IV, and lead to a lobby that opens directly onto the central patio. Following the symmetry ordered by the Faculty, on both sides of the patio there are two batteries of three elevators each, accompanied by imperial stairs on each side. Due to the confusion that the symmetry of the building generates in the students, it has been chosen to paint each nucleus of circulations of a different color: the nucleus "river" is blue and the nucleus "earth" is orange. The workshops are organized from the first floor, these being the ones that mainly use the Architecture career. The first floor, of a considerable height, has a mezzanine suspended with tensors of the slab of the second floor. This mezzanine also houses workshops and warehouses belonging to the faculty's chairs.

On the second floor, the workshops mainly belong to the careers of Graphic Design, Industrial Design and Clothing Design, many of them are also used by the Common Basic Cycle. In this level, two also symmetrical platforms extend over the patio central, giving space for one of them to operate a student bar. The third floor is used by Image and Sound Design workshops.

On the fourth floor, the administration of the Faculty, the office of the Dean and various Institutes, Centers and departments of specialties.

The ground floor also had to host workshops according to the original project, but its spaces were granted to bookstores and printing and photocopying houses, due to the isolation suffered by the University City, forcing it to self-supply. There are also offices of the Department of Students and University Extension, there the university dining room, an exhibition hall called "Horacio Baliero", the meeting room of the Board of Directors and the Documentation and Library Center "Prof. Arq. Manuel Ignacio Net "

The "Aula Magna" Prof. Arq. Juan Manuel Borthagaray works in the basement where lectures are given, acts and deliveries of titles are held, and conferences and events are organized. There are also classrooms and offices used by the Common Basic Cycle, and there is another bar and more bookstores, both artistic and study books.

The building is designed for operation with central air conditioning, as evidenced by the grid structure of beams with which all the slabs are assembled, and which is embedded in all its beams for the passage of pipes of air conditioning and light installations. , it is even contemplated its closure with suspended ceilings. However, the installation of the air conditioning was never carried out, and this, added to the lack of sunshades removed from the façade, strongly affects the operation of the building, since it has become too permeable to changes in temperature, suffering from the cold of winter , and the sun and summer heat due to the lack of sunshades and ventilation.

Careers[edit]

Currently the faculty has a total of six careers.

Architecture
Graphic design
Lic. In Landscape Planning and Design (dictated in conjunction with the FAUBA - Faculty of Agronomy - UBA),
Clothing Design
Textile Design
Industrial design
Image and sound design

Referencias[edit]

[[Category:1947 in Argentina]] [[Category:Urban planning in Argentina]]