Description:
The Colombian architectural firm ESUS (Esguerra, Saenz, Urdaneta y Samper) played a key role in the development of modern architecture in Colombia during the mid-20th century. Notable for their technical innovation, elaborate language and careful execution, ESUS' buildings also carry broader significance in terms of our understanding of how the international ideals of architectural modernism were adapted to local Latin American contexts. Yet until now there has existed no English-language study of their architecture and legacy.
Published as part of the Bloomsbury Studies in Modern Architecture series, which brings to light the work of significant yet overlooked modernist architects, this book examines ESUS' work from an array of perspectives including the technological, formal, material, urban, and global, showing in particular how their high-rise concrete buildings contribute to new understandings of the history of concrete architecture.
Including previously unpublished archival documents, images, and drawings, this is an important new account in the expanding scholarly history of modernism in Latin America.
Brief description: Professor Tom Avermaete is Chair of the History and Theory of Urban Design at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. His research focuses on the architecture of the city and the changing roles, approaches and tools of architects and urban designers from a cross-cultural perspective. Avermaete is editor of OASE. Journal of Architecture and member of the advisory board of the Architecture Theory Review and Docomomo Journal.