Freddy Mamani Building in El Alto , Bolivia

[chicar]

( Post here because there no South American section)

Marvelously Whimsical:
https://www.reddit.com/r/architecture/comments/b58jaq/freddy_mamani_building_in_el_alto_bolivia_building/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

[von Corax]

( Post here because there no South American section)

No, I think this is the place for architecture. I'd like to keep North America primarily for event announcements and reports.

I do need to do some housecleaning, though.

In any case, wonderful building.

[J. Wilhelm]

Some commenter in that thread wrote Art Déco.

[chicar]

Eeeeh... i see it now.

[Hurricane Annie]

A fabulous edifice

[RJBowman]

Very deco-like, but lacking the grace of the best deco. I don't like that the theme ends at the top of the first floor; it's like something was stacked on top of something else.

[J. Wilhelm]

Very deco-like, but lacking the grace of the best deco. I don't like that the theme ends at the top of the first floor; it's like something was stacked on top of something else.

It does look more like a facade to me. Built over an existing structure. The underlying building looks more to me like traditional small-town architecture in Latin America.

One has to consider the location. People may be misinterpreting the architect's intent when calling it Art Deco. El Alto may be Bolivia's second largest city, but at just short of a million people it is hardly the largest city in Latin America. Its roots are more Native than European, and the economic level of the country and the city is radically different from, say, Buenos Aires, Argentina. The creator calls his buildings "Cholets" a pormanteau of the words Chalet and Cholo, a once derogatory South American term for indigenous people. Here's an interesting article on El Alto, Bolivia:

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/oct/17/el-alto-bolivia-architecture-culture-la-paz

A "Cholet" in El Alto, Bolivia



~~~

[Banfili]

I rather like both buildings!

[J. Wilhelm]

I rather like both buildings!

Reading the article I posted above, it does look that the intent was to be 100% Aymara Native, rather than a copy of Art Deco. But all things being equal I can't see anyone in this planet isolated enough to not have been influenced by Art Deco in some way.

Mamani is in fact an Aymara Native himself. He's borrowed the aethetics from his cultural background, and it does look like an alternate Art Deco. It's a very interesting exercise when one postulates what an alternate reality culture or a civilisation far away on another planet would develop in lieu of Victorian and Art Deco aesthetics.  It reminds me of the aesthetics of a Japanese Anime called "Wings of Honneamise," a Space Age Cold War tale that takes place in another planet dominated by two large countries hostile to one another. The flavor of the aesthetics were clearly Asian, but they re-imagined a Diesel/Space Age society similar to that during our Cold War Era.