Mario Roberto Alvarez: el vestíbulo en relación al lugar

Abstract

This research is based on the approach proposed by Helio Piñón and Cristina Gastón, who consider modernity from its conception as an inseparable activity from the place it is situated. Starting from this premise, criteria have been found only with the purpose of animating the visual condition of every architectural practice.

The lobby of a building, being a focal point between architecture and urbanism, allows access to the project from both scales. It is, from this medium, that two constants are recognized in buildings between 1970 and 1980 by Mario Roberto Álvarez: a free-standing tower and a building between dividers, which can be combined in several ways according to the specific conditions of the environment where they are implanted. Hence, the tower of the Club Alemán in Buenos Aires, demands attention to reveal certain key aspects to access the compression of a greater group of office buildings in the architect’s construction work.

Additionally, the solutions of the lobby are contrasted with the urbanistic proposals of the Danish Jan Gehl, regarding how to think about a city at ‘eye level’. And it is in this situation that the importance of Álvarez’s work resides, whose consistency had addressed these recommendations a long time before. In effect, the architecture of Mario Roberto Álvarez enabled the construction of the city with quality architecture