SEPRA/Clorindo Testa
Banco de Londres y América del Sud

Buenos Aires, 1959-1966. Edited by Manuel Cuadra and Wilfried Wang. Essays Jorge Francisco Liernur et al. Translated by Louise Mereles.

The Banco de Londres y América del Sud, like few other cases before it, had shown a direction for contemporary architecture to follow that would live the key principles of modern architecture. The close up view of these documents supports the otherwise cursory assessment, that this building is one of the outstanding examples of modern architecture. In its stance, the creation of single volume that is occupied by suspended floors as well as rising floors slabs, that has every sinew of even its smallest element thoroughly honed, the Banco de Londres y América del Sud can be considered both as a singular phenomenon in which the aspirations and experience of a large number of designers and engineers could be realized as well as an exemplary case of a relatively independent language that set itself free from either the expected Neo-Classicism or the then new orthodoxy of rationalist Modernism. In this instance, the umbilical cord was to work in the other direction, feeding the homeland with inspiration. It was decades later that the figured components of the English High-Tech architects (Rogers, Foster et al) were to find their realization, including the ironic version by Stirling and Gowan. 251 Seiten mit 220 Abb., Querformat 22 cm x 30 cm, broschiert (O'NFM_4 - The O'Neil Ford Monograph Series; Vol. 4/Wasmuth Verlag 2012)