WA-AW. Modern architecture for public health: An analysis from Wladimiro Acosta and Amancio Williams projects

Abstract

After the mid 1930s in Argentina, as in other Latin American countries, the government, through its public works, began to use modern architecture as a vehicle of communication, to create a public image of progress and technical efficiency. This impulse is evident regardless of the ideological fundaments of the different governments. Sometimes young architects were incorporated into the technical divisions of public offices (thereby redefining professional relationships) while other times prestigious architects were employed for projects. In both cases, technical knowledge, mediating between politics and society, was placed in a symbolic position of neutrality and administrative rationality. (Liernur, 2001)

The purpose of this article is to account for transformations that occurred within project design processes and logic in little over one decade, based on an analysis of Amancio Williams and Wladimiro Acosta’s proposals for public hospitals.