Luis Lacasa Navarro (1899 – 30 March 1966) was a Spanish architect. His work in Spain and Paris before and during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) was rationalist and functional. He is best known as co-designer of the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 Paris Exposition, a work designed to showcase the modern legitimacy of the embattled Spanish Republic. After the war he went into exile in the Soviet Union.
Luis Lacasa Navarro was born in Ribadesella, Asturias, in 1899. His father, Telmo Lacasa, was the road engineer for Ribadesella. Later his father was reassigned and the family moved to Huesca. Lacasa began to study architecture in Barcelona, then moved on to Madrid, the only other city in Spain where the subject was taught.[1] He graduated from the Superior Technical School of Architecture of Madrid in 1921. At the Residencia de Estudiantes he became friends with Alberto Sánchez(es), Federico García Lorca, Luis Buñuel and others with whom he founded The Order of Toledo. He went to Germany to learn how to work with reinforced concrete, visited the Bauhaus in Weimar and worked in the Office of Urban Planning in Dresden until 1923.[2] His brother in law was Alberto Sánchez Pérez(es), a sculptor and painter who learned to read at the age of 15.[3]
In 1923 Lacasa returned to Spain, where he gave lectures on the German approach to urban planning.[2] He became a contributor to the journal Arquitectura, writing articles in which he defended the principles of functionalism.[1] Lacasa belonged to the group of architects of the "Generation of 25", which also included Sánchez Arcas, Luis Gutiérrez Soto and Luis Martínez-Feduchi(es) and introduced the rationalist architecture of the Modern Movement to Madrid.[4] The group organized the 11th National Congress of Architecture in 1925 and the first National Congress of Urbanism in 1926. From 1927 he worked in the Technical Office of the University City of Madrid. In 1930 he helped create the Colegio de Arquitectos de Madrid. In 1931 he joined the Uranization Office of the Madrid City Council. He was a founding member of the Alliance of Antifascist Intellectuals for the Defense of Culture.[2] In 1931 Federico García Lorca published a surrealist poem entitled Vaca dedicated to Luis Lacasa in the magazine Occidente.[4]
Lacasa won a number of competitions in architecture and urban planning, including:[2]
Reconstruction of the ground floor of the Spanish pavilion, with a reproduction of Picasso's Guernica
During the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) Lacasa was commissioned to design the Spanish Pavilion for the 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne in Paris.[5] He collaborated on this with Josep Lluís Sert, a fellow member of GATEPAC (Grupo de arquitectos y ticnicos espafioles para el progreso de la arquitectura contemporinea).[6] In a book he published in 1937 Lacasa laid out his architectural beliefs and criticized Le Corbusier, whom he considered an ideologue rather than someone who built habitable buildings.[1] Lacasa returned to Spain the next year, but at the end of the Spanish Civil War went into exile in Moscow.[2]
Soviet Union and China (1939–66)
Lacasa was an architect at the Academy of Architecture of the Soviet Union from 1939 to 1954.[2] Between 1943 and 1944 Lacasa and Sánchez Arcas were displaced to the Urals for work on fortifications and defense of Moscow.[1] He spent 1954–60 in China with his family as head of the Spanish section of the Foreign Languages Publishing House.[2] In Peking Lacasa and his wife Soledad never locked the door, since in China at that time there was no concern about thieves, and to lock the door would be insulting to visitors.[7]
In 1960 Lacasa was permitted to return to Spain.[1] A group of young modernist architects heard of his return and decided to organize a tribute. Paco Oíza, José Luis Romany, Carlos Ferrán, Luis Miquel and Pedro Casariego arranged the details and asked the Directorate General of Architecture for financial help for the event and for Lacasa himself. The Director General García Lomas, who later became mayor of Madrid, responded by giving Lacasa 24 hours to leave Spain.[4] He had spent only a month in his native country.[1] In 1964 Lacasa published a memoir about his brother in law, Alberto, in Budapest under the pseudonym of "Peter Martín".[8] He worked in the Institute of Art History of the Academy of Sciences until his death.[2] He died in Moscow on 30 March 1966.[1]
Notable works
British Institute building, Madrid
In 1926 Lacasa designed a small residential palace for Valentín Ruiz Senén that was later occupied by the British Institute for many years. It has a surprising neoclassical style. The building was erected in 1926-31. It was later remodelled by Luciano Delage Villegas in 1944 and then enlarged by Eduardo Torallas López in 1946.[9]
Manuel Sánchez Arcas and Lacasa won the 1927 competition by the Board for the Extension of Studies to build the Instituto Nacional de Física y Química (Institute of Physics and Chemistry) funded by the International Education Board of the Rockefeller Foundation. Known as the "Fundación Rockefeller building", it was designed in 1927 and built between 1928 and 1930. The brick structure was carefully thought out.[10] It followed the new principles of rationalist functionalism.[11] It fused these principles with traditional construction practices.[1] The windows of the central body have semicircular arches, while the others are lintelled. A giant portico on the main facade has great simplicity. It recalls classical designs but is free from historicism, and reflects the architecture of the great American universities.[10]
Colegios Mayores student residences
Colegio Mayor Antonio de Nebrija
In 1932 Lacasa designed four residential colleges for Madrid University, Antonio Nebrija, Ximénez de Cisneros, Menéndez y Pelayo and Diego Covarrubias. They were built in 1935–36, and rebuilt and enlarged by Javier Barroso Sánchez-Guerra(es) in 1941–43. The complex of buildings and facilities was a grouping on linear and geometric blocks in an orthogonal and independent arrangement around a series of gardens, open spaces and sports areas. It included T-shaped structures for general services, two bedroom pavilions with corridors to the north and rooms to the south, the director's residence, a conference room and other facilities. Lacasa chose a modular design that allowed repetition of brick forms in pure rationalist orthodoxy. After the civil war the whole complex had to be rebuilt, although the original spirit was preserved.[12]
Lacasa was commissioned to design the Spanish Pavilion for the 1937 Paris Exposition.[5] He was later joined by Josep Lluís Sert, the most international of Spanish architects at the time.[5] They were helped by the young architect Antoni Bonet i Castellana and by the French architect Abella.[13] The two main architects favoured different styles, with Lacasa in favour of regionalism and social realism and Sert in modern rationalism. Sert's views prevailed in the structure, while Lacasa was responsible for the museography and content.[13]Josep Renau, head of the Directorate General of Fine Arts, made key decisions about the content, as did the Ministries of Propaganda and Public Industry.[14]
The Spanish Pavilion had a rationalist architecture and used modern, functional materials.[5] The temporary building was erected quickly on a small site in the Jardins du Trocadéro, with a very limited budget.[15] It tried to demonstrate that despite the civil war the Spanish Republic was committed to modernity and humanism.[5] The structure had an exact, cool geometry that emphasises horizontal shapes. It was largely colored in shades of gray, although the red lines of the painted metal structure gave a Spanish touch. It contained Pablo Picasso's painting Guernica. Picasso visited the pavilion while it was being built, and Sert visited Picasso in his workshop while he was making the painting.[13] The Spanish pavilion was rebuilt in Barcelona for the 1992 Summer Olympics.[1]
Publications
Publications by Lacasa included:
Lacasa Navarro, Luis (2012), José Laborda Yneva (ed.), Artículos en la revista arquitectura, 1922- 1935 / Luis Lacasa Navarro, Éntasis, Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, p. 170
Collins, George R. (March 1965), "Spain: A Case Study in Action and Reaction", Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, University of California Press on behalf of the Society of Architectural Historians, 24 (1), doi:10.2307/988282, JSTOR 988282
El Pabellón español de la Exposición Internacional de 1937 en París (in Spanish), Artium, 2010, retrieved 2018-05-13
Fernández Aparicio, Carmen, Maqueta del Pabellón de España en la Exposición Internacional de París de 1937 (in Spanish), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, retrieved 2018-05-13
Guerrero, Salvador, Luis Lacasa (in Spanish), La Junta para Ampliación de Estudios e Investigaciones Científicas, retrieved 2018-05-12
(in Spanish), Fundación Arquitectura COAM, archived from the original on 2018-10-05, retrieved 2018-05-13
Josep Lluís Sert y Luis Lacasa (in Spanish), Artium, 2010, retrieved 2018-05-13
Lafuente, A; Saraiva, T. (2004), "The Urban Scale of Science and the Enlargement of Madrid (1851-1936)", Social Studies of Science, 34 (4)
León, María Teresa (1976–1977), "La llave", Litoral (in Spanish), Revista Litoral S.A. (64/66), JSTOR 43316072
Malo de Molina, Julio (8 August 2015), "Luis Lacasa", lavozdigital.es (in Spanish), LVCD S.L.U., retrieved 2018-05-13
(in Spanish), Fundación Arquitectura COAM, archived from the original on 2018-10-05, retrieved 2018-05-13
Peralta Gilabert, Rosa (2012), "Diferentes Vivencias En La Escenografía Del Exilio: Alberto Sánchez, Miguel Prieto Y Antoni Clavé", Anales de la literatura española contemporánea (in Spanish), Society of Spanish & Spanish-American Studies, 37 (2), JSTOR 23237387
(in Spanish), Fundación Arquitectura COAM, archived from the original on 2018-10-05, retrieved 2018-05-13
Vela Cossío, Fernando (3 September 2011), "Luis Lacasa, un arquitecto de origen riosellano", La Nueva Espana (in Spanish), Editorial Prensa Asturiana, S.A., retrieved 2018-05-13
February 01, 2023
luis, lacasa, navarro, 1899, march, 1966, spanish, architect, work, spain, paris, before, during, spanish, civil, 1936, rationalist, functional, best, known, designer, spanish, pavilion, 1937, paris, exposition, work, designed, showcase, modern, legitimacy, em. Luis Lacasa Navarro 1899 30 March 1966 was a Spanish architect His work in Spain and Paris before and during the Spanish Civil War 1936 39 was rationalist and functional He is best known as co designer of the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 Paris Exposition a work designed to showcase the modern legitimacy of the embattled Spanish Republic After the war he went into exile in the Soviet Union Luis Lacasa NavarroBorn1899Ribadesella Asturias SpainDied30 March 1966Moscow RussiaNationalitySpanishOccupationArchitect Contents 1 Spain and Germany 1899 1923 2 Spain 1923 39 3 Soviet Union and China 1939 66 4 Notable works 4 1 British Institute building Madrid 4 2 National Institute of Physics and Chemistry 4 3 Colegios Mayores student residences 4 4 Spanish pavilion at the 1937 Paris exposition 5 Publications 6 Notes 7 SourcesSpain and Germany 1899 1923 EditLuis Lacasa Navarro was born in Ribadesella Asturias in 1899 His father Telmo Lacasa was the road engineer for Ribadesella Later his father was reassigned and the family moved to Huesca Lacasa began to study architecture in Barcelona then moved on to Madrid the only other city in Spain where the subject was taught 1 He graduated from the Superior Technical School of Architecture of Madrid in 1921 At the Residencia de Estudiantes he became friends with Alberto Sanchez es Federico Garcia Lorca Luis Bunuel and others with whom he founded The Order of Toledo He went to Germany to learn how to work with reinforced concrete visited the Bauhaus in Weimar and worked in the Office of Urban Planning in Dresden until 1923 2 His brother in law was Alberto Sanchez Perez es a sculptor and painter who learned to read at the age of 15 3 Spain 1923 39 Edit Estadio Nacional Complutense 1927 In 1923 Lacasa returned to Spain where he gave lectures on the German approach to urban planning 2 He became a contributor to the journal Arquitectura writing articles in which he defended the principles of functionalism 1 Lacasa belonged to the group of architects of the Generation of 25 which also included Sanchez Arcas Luis Gutierrez Soto and Luis Martinez Feduchi es and introduced the rationalist architecture of the Modern Movement to Madrid 4 The group organized the 11th National Congress of Architecture in 1925 and the first National Congress of Urbanism in 1926 From 1927 he worked in the Technical Office of the University City of Madrid In 1930 he helped create the Colegio de Arquitectos de Madrid In 1931 he joined the Uranization Office of the Madrid City Council He was a founding member of the Alliance of Antifascist Intellectuals for the Defense of Culture 2 In 1931 Federico Garcia Lorca published a surrealist poem entitled Vaca dedicated to Luis Lacasa in the magazine Occidente 4 Lacasa won a number of competitions in architecture and urban planning including 2 Hospital Provincial de Toledo 1926 31 with Manuel Sanchez Arcas Instituto Nacional de Fisica y Quimica funded by the Rockefeller Foundation 1927 32 with Sanchez Arcas Hospital Provincial in Logrono 1929 Villages on the irrigated banks of the Guadalquivir 1934 with Jesus Marti Martin and Esteban de la Mora Plan de Extension of Logrono 1935 Reconstruction of the ground floor of the Spanish pavilion with a reproduction of Picasso s Guernica During the Spanish Civil War 1936 39 Lacasa was commissioned to design the Spanish Pavilion for the 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne in Paris 5 He collaborated on this with Josep Lluis Sert a fellow member of GATEPAC Grupo de arquitectos y ticnicos espafioles para el progreso de la arquitectura contemporinea 6 In a book he published in 1937 Lacasa laid out his architectural beliefs and criticized Le Corbusier whom he considered an ideologue rather than someone who built habitable buildings 1 Lacasa returned to Spain the next year but at the end of the Spanish Civil War went into exile in Moscow 2 Soviet Union and China 1939 66 EditLacasa was an architect at the Academy of Architecture of the Soviet Union from 1939 to 1954 2 Between 1943 and 1944 Lacasa and Sanchez Arcas were displaced to the Urals for work on fortifications and defense of Moscow 1 He spent 1954 60 in China with his family as head of the Spanish section of the Foreign Languages Publishing House 2 In Peking Lacasa and his wife Soledad never locked the door since in China at that time there was no concern about thieves and to lock the door would be insulting to visitors 7 In 1960 Lacasa was permitted to return to Spain 1 A group of young modernist architects heard of his return and decided to organize a tribute Paco Oiza Jose Luis Romany Carlos Ferran Luis Miquel and Pedro Casariego arranged the details and asked the Directorate General of Architecture for financial help for the event and for Lacasa himself The Director General Garcia Lomas who later became mayor of Madrid responded by giving Lacasa 24 hours to leave Spain 4 He had spent only a month in his native country 1 In 1964 Lacasa published a memoir about his brother in law Alberto in Budapest under the pseudonym of Peter Martin 8 He worked in the Institute of Art History of the Academy of Sciences until his death 2 He died in Moscow on 30 March 1966 1 Notable works EditBritish Institute building Madrid Edit In 1926 Lacasa designed a small residential palace for Valentin Ruiz Senen that was later occupied by the British Institute for many years It has a surprising neoclassical style The building was erected in 1926 31 It was later remodelled by Luciano Delage Villegas in 1944 and then enlarged by Eduardo Torallas Lopez in 1946 9 Edificio Rockefeller by Lacasa and Sanchez Arcas 1932 National Institute of Physics and Chemistry Edit Manuel Sanchez Arcas and Lacasa won the 1927 competition by the Board for the Extension of Studies to build the Instituto Nacional de Fisica y Quimica Institute of Physics and Chemistry funded by the International Education Board of the Rockefeller Foundation Known as the Fundacion Rockefeller building it was designed in 1927 and built between 1928 and 1930 The brick structure was carefully thought out 10 It followed the new principles of rationalist functionalism 11 It fused these principles with traditional construction practices 1 The windows of the central body have semicircular arches while the others are lintelled A giant portico on the main facade has great simplicity It recalls classical designs but is free from historicism and reflects the architecture of the great American universities 10 Colegios Mayores student residences Edit Colegio Mayor Antonio de Nebrija In 1932 Lacasa designed four residential colleges for Madrid University Antonio Nebrija Ximenez de Cisneros Menendez y Pelayo and Diego Covarrubias They were built in 1935 36 and rebuilt and enlarged by Javier Barroso Sanchez Guerra es in 1941 43 The complex of buildings and facilities was a grouping on linear and geometric blocks in an orthogonal and independent arrangement around a series of gardens open spaces and sports areas It included T shaped structures for general services two bedroom pavilions with corridors to the north and rooms to the south the director s residence a conference room and other facilities Lacasa chose a modular design that allowed repetition of brick forms in pure rationalist orthodoxy After the civil war the whole complex had to be rebuilt although the original spirit was preserved 12 Spanish pavilion at the 1937 Paris exposition Edit Pavello de la Republica CRAI Library in Barcelona a reproduction of the 1937 Spanish pavilion Lacasa was commissioned to design the Spanish Pavilion for the 1937 Paris Exposition 5 He was later joined by Josep Lluis Sert the most international of Spanish architects at the time 5 They were helped by the young architect Antoni Bonet i Castellana and by the French architect Abella 13 The two main architects favoured different styles with Lacasa in favour of regionalism and social realism and Sert in modern rationalism Sert s views prevailed in the structure while Lacasa was responsible for the museography and content 13 Josep Renau head of the Directorate General of Fine Arts made key decisions about the content as did the Ministries of Propaganda and Public Industry 14 The Spanish Pavilion had a rationalist architecture and used modern functional materials 5 The temporary building was erected quickly on a small site in the Jardins du Trocadero with a very limited budget 15 It tried to demonstrate that despite the civil war the Spanish Republic was committed to modernity and humanism 5 The structure had an exact cool geometry that emphasises horizontal shapes It was largely colored in shades of gray although the red lines of the painted metal structure gave a Spanish touch It contained Pablo Picasso s painting Guernica Picasso visited the pavilion while it was being built and Sert visited Picasso in his workshop while he was making the painting 13 The Spanish pavilion was rebuilt in Barcelona for the 1992 Summer Olympics 1 Publications EditPublications by Lacasa included Lacasa Navarro Luis 2012 Jose Laborda Yneva ed Articulos en la revista arquitectura 1922 1935 Luis Lacasa Navarro Entasis Zaragoza Institucion Fernando el Catolico p 170Notes Edit a b c d e f g h i Vela Cossio 2011 a b c d e f g h Guerrero Peralta Gilabert 2012 pp 698 713 a b c Malo de Molina 2015 a b c d e Fernandez Aparicio Collins 1965 p 63 Leon 1976 1977 p 188 Peralta Gilabert 2012 p 715 Palacete para D Valentin Ruiz Senen COAM a b Instituto Nacional de Fisica y Quimica COAM Lafuente amp Saraiva 2004 pp 531 569 Residencias de estudiantes COAM a b c Josep Lluis Sert y Luis Lacasa Artium El Pabellon espanol Artium Miro 2008 p 683 Sources EditCollins George R March 1965 Spain A Case Study in Action and Reaction Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians University of California Press on behalf of the Society of Architectural Historians 24 1 doi 10 2307 988282 JSTOR 988282 El Pabellon espanol de la Exposicion Internacional de 1937 en Paris in Spanish Artium 2010 retrieved 2018 05 13 Fernandez Aparicio Carmen Maqueta del Pabellon de Espana en la Exposicion Internacional de Paris de 1937 in Spanish Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia retrieved 2018 05 13 Guerrero Salvador Luis Lacasa in Spanish La Junta para Ampliacion de Estudios e Investigaciones Cientificas retrieved 2018 05 12 Instituto Nacional de Fisica y Quimica Fundacion Rockefeller del CSIC in Spanish Fundacion Arquitectura COAM archived from the original on 2018 10 05 retrieved 2018 05 13 Josep Lluis Sert y Luis Lacasa in Spanish Artium 2010 retrieved 2018 05 13 Lafuente A Saraiva T 2004 The Urban Scale of Science and the Enlargement of Madrid 1851 1936 Social Studies of Science 34 4 Leon Maria Teresa 1976 1977 La llave Litoral in Spanish Revista Litoral S A 64 66 JSTOR 43316072 Malo de Molina Julio 8 August 2015 Luis Lacasa lavozdigital es in Spanish LVCD S L U retrieved 2018 05 13 Miro Joan 2008 In their own words CENDEAC ISBN 978 84 96898 36 3 retrieved 2018 05 13 Palacete para D Valentin Ruiz Senen in Spanish Fundacion Arquitectura COAM archived from the original on 2018 10 05 retrieved 2018 05 13 Peralta Gilabert Rosa 2012 Diferentes Vivencias En La Escenografia Del Exilio Alberto Sanchez Miguel Prieto Y Antoni Clave Anales de la literatura espanola contemporanea in Spanish Society of Spanish amp Spanish American Studies 37 2 JSTOR 23237387 Residencias de estudiantes in Spanish Fundacion Arquitectura COAM archived from the original on 2018 10 05 retrieved 2018 05 13 Vela Cossio Fernando 3 September 2011 Luis Lacasa un arquitecto de origen riosellano La Nueva Espana in Spanish Editorial Prensa Asturiana S A retrieved 2018 05 13 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Luis Lacasa amp oldid 1032447548, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
