Aesthetics as a social need

Abstract

Florencia Rodríguez emphasizes the present good moment of Latin American architecture and describes some historic clues that allow a better understanding of the current process. She warns that “Latin American architecture” is nothing more than the way in which we incorporate ourselves into the narrative of occidental history and that today we have the chance to liberate ourselves of discourses inspired in foreign ideas. Rodríguez maintains that we, Latin Americans, have intellectual relationships that are more fertile than mere spatial proximity in order to understand our own architectural experience.  She insists on the need to put to the test new categories of analysis that account for the local dimension of the work of some architects, like Giancarlo Mazzanti or Solano Benítez. Finally, Rodríguez revalues aesthetics as a social need and rejects the distrust generated by visually attractive works.