Resumen de Arquitectura moderna de quito, 1954-1960
This doctoral thesis is a historical-critical discourse on the architecture of Quito between 1954 and 1960. It is based on different local voices expressed in word and deed about the city and its architecture in the context of Quito's modernization and improvement with a view to being a (worthy) venue for the 11th Inter-American Conference of 1959; an international event that did not take place. The preparations for the conference activated -in the field of architecture- the dichotomy between the traditional and the modern discourses when deciding the strategies to make the city a 'worthy venue' for the event and with a high international tourist potential. At the same time, debates were stimulated on spatial and building topics linked to the areas of legislation, professionalization, industrialization, and financing, as well as on the "way of being urban" or the sense of the urban. Interconnected fields, in which the power-identity-memory mechanisms were reproduced and expressed by acquiring a specific form in architecture and in urban configuration.
From these considerations, the study interval is subdivided into two periods. The first consisted of a period of preparation, between March 1954 and January 1958, with the populist government of Jose Maria Velasco Ibarra (1954-1956) who spoke in favor of cleaning up the capital to host the Conference. This continued with the first year of the social-Christian government of Camilo Ponce Enriquez (1957-1958), who set out to modernise the city with the same aim. The second period occurred between 1958 and 1960, which corresponds to the continuation of the government of Ponce Enriquez. This period culminates with the inauguration of the modern works, which were erected by the regime to welcome the delegations that would attend the planned 11th Inter-American Conference. The critical analysis of the proposals acquires meaning in the socio-political scenario of each government and of the existing relations of kinship and friendship. The analysis is also careful to establish the projects genesis in the framework of power relations present in the professional team conformation, land selection and purchase, relationship with the municipality and with the Regulatory Plan office, among others. Finally, reflection has been made on the symbolic meaning that the governing authorities intended to transmit to citizens through the materiality of the projected, constructed buildings and of official discourses of the time.
From the need to find and put into discussion understanding of those who were not linked or ingratiated with power, this story is structured based on the traces left in either discursive or built forms.
This work puts projects the influence the official discourses and practises of the time period studied had in trends of professionalisation, unionisation and legitimization in the fields of architecture and urbanism. This projection demonstrates how those years were the turning point in a struggle within the field in relation to the architecture and urban planning, along with its possible incidence in the configuration of identity and urban memory. In this context, the study reconstructs the scenarios within which those discourses were carried out. The possible effects the speeches had are established, in addition to analysing the possible reasons they were excluded from official discourse and citizen memory. The geographic demarcation covers the entire city of that time, bringing to light specific interventions in the city which at that time was growing in a dispersed, fragmentary and sparkling manner.
