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Issue 9 - PREVI revisited

A Contemporary Approach to the Proyecto Experimental de Vivienda in Lima (June 2012)

In March 2012, a group of students and teachers from the chair of Josep Lluis Mateo travelled to the city of Lima (Peru) to re-discover the potential of a neighbourhood that was built between 1969 and 1975 by twenty-six architects from all over the world. Today, 40 years after its construction, PREVI is the reflection of a dynamic, consolidated, and cohesive neighbourhood that is highly relevant in the context of the current crisis. The issue presents both documents from involved protagonists (Peter Land - the urban planner, Frederick Cooper - a local architect, and Fumihiko Maki and Alfredo Pini - two of the international architects), besides a number of analytical essays.

Issue 9 - PREVI revisitedMateo Josep LluísVideos

PREVI EXPERIENCE

by Josep Lluís Mateo

The relatively little known PREVI project is important for several reasons. First of all, it was set in the context of the overall logic of the informal city. The self-constructed city, comprising houses built by their occupants, played a major role at the time, especially in that particular...

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Issue 9 - PREVI revisitedRamis TomeuEssays

WHAT IS PREVI?

by Tomeu Ramis

In 1965, the Peruvian Government and the United Nations invited British architect Peter Land to design a strategy for mass housing as an alternative to the massive informal settlements that were dramatically taking place in Lima during that period. In 1966, informal discussions began with the...

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Issue 9 - PREVI revisitedLand Peter, Ramis TomeuInterviews

EXPERIMENTAL NATURE

Interview with Peter Land

The PREVI competition established a theoretical framework that revised the functionalist urbanism established by the former CIAM according to new urban principles. Could you define those principles?

The PREVI built project itself define the new urban principles. It is a more comprehensive...

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Issue 9 - PREVI revisitedCooper Frederick, Ramis TomeuInterviews

LOCAL BACKGROUND

Interview with Frederick Cooper

When the PREVI competition was announced in 1969, there was an intense debate in Europe in relation to the former CIAM approach to the city leaded by the young members of the Team10 and some of them were invited to participate in the competition. How did that debate influence the work of the...

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Issue 9 - PREVI revisitedMaki Fumihiko , Baumgartner Marianne, Ramis TomeuInterviews

GENETIC STRATEGY

Interview with Fumihiko Maki

You worked on the PREVI competition in 1969 with Kisho Kurokawa and Kiyonori Kikutake as members of the Metabolism movement. Did you consider the PREVI as a chance to develop some of the Metabolism principles?

In a retrospect, my answer is yes. But when we were approached by Peter Land...

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Issue 9 - PREVI revisitedBaumgartner Marianne, Ramis Tomeu, Pini AlfredoInterviews, Videos

BIG HOPES

Interview with Alfredo Pini, Atelier 5

Various international architects who were addressing new forms of dwelling and settlement in the 1950s and 1960s were chosen for PREVI competition. Atelier 5 caused an international sensation with the Siedlung Halen settlement. Why was this topic a cause for such an international concern at the...

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Issue 9 - PREVI revisitedRodriguez LuisEssays

THE IMPACT OF PREVI ON LIMA

by Luis Rodriguez

THE BARRIADAS OF LIMA AND PREVI

The growth of the neighbourhoods of Lima can be divided into three main periods. The beginning of the first is unclear but it continued up to the occupation of the slopes of the hill ranges of San Cosme (1946) and El Agustino (1947), three kilometres from...

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Issue 9 - PREVI revisitedBaumgartner MarianneEssays, Videos

WALKWAYS, OASES AND PLAYGROUNDS - Collective spaces in the PREVI

by Marianne Baumgartner

The site of the PREVI international architecture competition was located some kilometres north of the built border of Lima in the 1960s, bounded and crossed by three important expressways. The area forms part of Peru’s long desert strip between the Andes and the South Pacific Ocean: an arid, dusty...

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Issue 9 - PREVI revisitedRamis TomeuEssays

LEARNING FROM PREVI

by Tomeu Ramis

After an end-of-century dominated by the iconic object as an end in itself and after a global crisis that introduced the need to bring new paradigms to architectural production, we are seeing the increasingly frequent appearance of architects and collectives who are shifting their focus towards...

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