Edificio de calle Villavicencio 378, Santiago, 1958. / Building on 378 Villavicencio Street, Santiago,1958.
Second Period
Despouy definitely adheres to the Modern Movement with the La Francesa apartment building in 1944, a pioneer in the use of duplex apartments in high-rise housing in Chile. This project was built in two stages and each body responds to its context with contrasting façade work. Towards Providencia Avenue, the concrete façade modulates and defines the apartment’s space, while to the interior of the block he experiments with one of the first curtain walls built with tubular profiles, covering the entire façade with a subtle turn at the corner. This project signals the research, language experimentation and avant-garde architectural vision embodied in the use of materials and particularly in the use of the curtain wall for buildings with a residential program. Note that this design is previous to the Lake Shore Drive apartments in Chicago (1949), by Mies Van der Rohe, also known as the Glass House Apartments for their glass envelope with exposed I-beam profiles on all four sides. The project on Villavicencio Street of 1956-58 is another step in his research. In this case he designed an H shaped building where the central body is raised on columns and articulates two side courtyards with an exposed corridor linking the volume facing the street with the one located in the back. He therefore achieves one single indoor garden space as a relief, as Le Corbusier did in projects such as the Housing Unit Marseille (1946). The understanding of light and space will be strengthened with the positioning of the central block and the yellow colored columns that support it.
Edificio de calle Villavicencio. / Building on Villavicencio Street.
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