Julio Gimeno House: Plastic Integration and Introversion

Abstract

There was, in the mid-twentieth century, a group and movement of collaborations between artists and architects in Uruguay, especially in Montevideo, which contributed significantly to the history of architecture and modern art in the country, and in some aspects related to one of the exponents of Uruguayan visual arts, Joaquín Torres García. This group of people, specific yet heterogeneous, essentially appropriated the concept of plastic integration and developed works which culminated in significant expressions of union of architecture and visual arts within the panorama of latin american modern architecture. Many were the architects and artists who in some way or another contributed to this movement, and became familiar with the teachings of Torres García. Within this group, some architects allied the concept of plastic integration with an introverted character of architectural design.

In this article, it is intended to analyze an architectural work in particular with such characteristics, which features an artistic work in communion with the project: the Julio Gimeno House, homonymous to its author, composed of a mural by Guillermo Fernández. In conjunction with this analysis, it is possible to establish parallels between some statements of Torres García and the architectural strategies adopted by Julio Gimeno.

The article seeks to make additional considerations regarding the statements of professor and architect Héctor Berio Lucas, published in his article about Julio Gimeno’s House for the Arquitectura nº269 magazine and publishing company SAU, in 2013, which deals with the analysis of the building from the perspective of approchement between art and architecture in architectural design composition.