*** Welcome to piglix ***

Amancio Williams


Amancio Williams (February 19, 1913 –October 14, 1989) was an Argentine architect and among his country's leading exponents of modern architecture.

Amancio Williams was born in Buenos Aires in 1913. His father, Alberto Williams, was a well-known composer of chamber music and the founder of the Buenos Aires Music Conservatory. He enrolled at the School of Engineering of the University of Buenos Aires, though an interest in aviation led him to leave school during his third year. This sabbatical ended in 1938, when he enrolled at the same university's School of Architecture.

He graduated in 1941 and created a portfolio of numerous prospective designs, though he found buyers for only a few, and among these was a residence in Mar del Plata commissioned by his own father. The elder Williams had purchased a 2-hectare (5 acre) property in what were then the wooded outskirts of the seaside city. A stream running through the land became the centerpiece for the architect's 1942 design for a modern, 9 by 27 meter (30 by 90 foot) weatherized concrete structure, which was set on an archway straddling the stream.

Williams also designed the home's minimalist interiors, fashioning the interior doors, fixtures and boiserie in a nearby workshop, as well most of the furniture. The concrete used in its construction was also chemically weatherized at the facility, so done to allow its use in the design without the need for cladding, which Williams felt would take from the "honesty of the materials." Christened the Casa del Puente ("Bridge House") upon its completion in 1946, it served as composer Alberto Williams' home until his death in 1952.

His design proposals in 1945 for a new international airport, to be built on the Río de la Plata and connected to the city via causeway, were rejected in favor of what became Ministro Pistarini International Airport, and aside from three Corrientes Province hospitals, he would complete no significant government works in subsequent decades. He was assigned by Le Corbusier, however, to supervise construction for the Curutchet House, a residence designed in 1949 by the Swiss architect for Dr. Pedro Curutchet, a prominent La Plata physician.


...
Wikipedia

...