In 1961 Emilio Duhart develops the Carozzi Industrial Complex with Luis Mitrovic in Nos, on the outskirts of Greater Santiago: a structural load-bearing façade completely open towards the highway allowing for a free open plan. In this project Duhart the visionary was ahead of works such as the American Cement Building in Los Angeles, California (1962), by architects Daniel Mann and Mendenhall, or the building for the International Business Machines (IBM) in Pittsburgh, by architects Curtis & Davis, designed the same year. Although the Carozzi building is not a tower, its structural proposal raises a new language in architecture. Meanwhile, the two American projects - as well as the Alcoa Tower by Skidmore Owings & Merrill in 1964 – allow for the exploration of the possibilities of developing high technology in high rise buildings such as the use of cross bracing, a unifying detail granting identity to the proposals. The difference lies in the implied constructive complexity: the office of SOM develops their projects in steel, Duhart in reinforced concrete. However, the technological processes and the use of new technologies inevitably feed on infrastructure, technical expertise and the necessary manpower to be developed. It will be precisely this aspect that goes against the original project by Duhart for the Ministry of Labor, forcing him to rethink his constructive proposal which will lead to not being awarded the first place and the commission awarded to the second. He therefore redesigned the main body, eliminating the diagonal bracing system and replacing it with a repetitive fenestration organized in a set off pattern, maintaining the constructive concept and the transmission of forces in the diagonal direction for the seismic bearing, which absorbs stresses and supports the four façades. This also decreased the transparency of the body, an issue criticized at the time for raising four identical façades without considering northern exposure. He also removed an urban canopy that distinguished the height of the bearing columns and originally provided a double story height at the main entrance, scaling the city and its inhabitants as entering the site. This resulted in a new interpretation of the building since the new façade of repetitive windows eliminated the distinction between the Ministry of Labor and the Employee Fund that appeared at the 7th floor, which housed the employee cafeteria and generated a break in the façade differentiating the program. Between 1992 and 1993 due to deterioration the orange “Muri Glass” coating was removed and the building façade was painted. However, the work remained unfinished in the auditorium program area off Teatinos Street, which has exacerbated the deterioration of the building envelope and its public image. Although part of the public space between the setback and the columns of the façade - which previously granted an extension of the sidewalk towards Huérfanos and Teatinos
streets - was closed, there are still remains of what gave value to this space and of the coating system on a monolithic seat that has withstood time, deterioration and major interventions. Had it been built according to the original draft, the Ministry of Labor would have been the first high-tech building in reinforced concrete in Latin America and a world benchmark of the technological advances of a small, distant country with a little-known architecture in the 60’s. It was the last project by Duhart in Chile. In 1970 he travels for business to France, where he settled for more than 35 years until his death. The understanding of his architectural work, along with the opportunity to establish relationships with the great minds of the twentieth century, allowed Emilio Duhart to build a base on which to make new proposals for global architecture. To filter the various influences while understanding the idiosyncrasies and possible technologies in Latin America, in search of a modern architecture appropriate to its context, as he said himself when he won the National Architecture Prize in 1977.
(*) Alberto Montealegre Klenner Arquitecto PUC (1961), académico y socio fundador de Montealegre, Beach, Arquitectos. Trabajó con Duhart entre 1961 y 1971. En 1944 publicó Emilio Duhart Arquitecto . PUC Architect (1961), academic and founder member of Montealegre, Beach, Architects. Duhart worked with between 1961 and 1971. In 1944 he published Emilio Duhart architect.
(*) Pablo Altikes Pinilla Arquitecto, candidato a doctor Universidad de Sevilla. Miembro Nacional e Internacional Docomomo y profesor de Taller de Arquitectura. Permanentemente publica artículos en libros y revistas especializadas, nacionales e internacionales. Architect, PhD candidate, University of Seville. National and International Docomomo member and professor of Architecture Workshop. Continuously published articles in books and magazines, national and international.
Bibliography: 1 .- Montealegre Klenner, Alberto: Emilio Duhart Arquitecto. Ediciones ARQ, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Serie Monografías, December 1994, p. 148-151. 2 .- AUCA Journal 10, p. 76-79, 1967. 3 .- Architectural Record Magazine, February 1962, p.13. 4 .- Progressive Architecture Magazine, September 1962, p. 163. 5 .- Serraino, Pierluigi: Icons of Northern California Modernism. Chronicle Books LLC, 2006. 6 .- McCarthy, Robert. Louis I Kahn. Editorial Phaidom, 2009. 7 .- Adams, Nicholas: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, The Experiment Since 1936. Editorial Electa Architecture, 2006. 8 .- Frampton, Kenneth: Labour, Work and Architecture. Collected Essays on Architecture and Design. Phaidon Press Limited, 2002. 9 .- Perspecta 31: Reading Structures. The MIT Press, 2000. 10 .- Arquitectura Viva 42, 1995. 11 .- Frampton, Kenneth: Studies in Tectonic Culture, The Poetics of Construction in the 19 Century Architecture. The MIT Press, 1996. 12 .- Interview with National Award architect Hector Valdes Phillips, 2008. 13 .- Original Archives. Sergio Larraín García-Moreno Information and Documentation Centre. Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urban Studies, Universidad Católica. Emilio Duhart H. Document Fund and special research fund.
Thanks to Pierre Asselot González for use and advice of his library. To Paloma Parrini of the Sergio Larraín García-Moreno Center for Information and Documentation. To Enrique Browne Covarrubias, for his advice and inputs to the text.
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