“CAMPUS AULA: Educational Architecture in Latin America” Exhibition

The Center for Architecture

[Image: Adolfo Ibáñez "University Viña del Mar Campus" by José Cruz Ovalle. Photograph: Leonardo Finotti.]

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The Center for Architecture presents CAMPUS AULA: Educational Architecture in Latin America, in conjunction with the AIANY 2023 Design Awards exhibition. Curated by Jeannette Plaut and Marcelo Sarovic, co-founders of the Santiago, Chile-based architectural platform, CONSTRUCTO, the exhibition explores nine new higher education projects in Latin America.

In the 20th century, Latin America was the site of several emblematic university projects with powerful social agendas. At this time, the Modernist paradigm conceived of the campus as a university town—an autonomous, contained site following a strict urban logic. Today, architects are once again redefining the educational experience in Latin America through designs that seek a more open, inclusive approach to learning. The transformation of the educational project can be explored in relation to two terms: “campus” and “aula,” or classroom, which represent two scales of intervention within the typology.

The nine projects in the exhibition, located in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, and Peru, rethink the traditional, Modernist conceptions of the campus and the classroom. At the territorial scale of the campus, these projects attempt to more fully integrate their institutions into the surrounding social and geographic context, whether by aligning the educational experience with contemporary urban conditions or establishing a dialogue with nature. While the campus roots the institution in place, today’s aula extends beyond its traditional confines, expanding its conceptual meaning to both formal and informal spaces of learning. The featured projects leverage interstitial spaces to create flexible, multi-programmatic spaces where new types of learning can occur. The projects will be presented via full-color photography, drawings and diagrams, and detailed models.

To further establish the connection between the contemporary projects and the Modernist legacy educational projects in Latin America, the nine projects will be presented in conjunction with an installation of 20 black-and-white photos of Modernist university projects by renowned Brazilian photographer Leonardo Finotti.

“Planning for this exhibition began prior to the pandemic, so we are especially pleased to finally be able to present it this spring,” said AIANY and Center for Architecture Interim Director Jesse Lazar. “The projects featured in CAMPUS AULA, many of which New Yorkers may be seeing for the first time, were designed and built before COVID, but the architectural strategies represented in them anticipate conversations happening today about the future of educational design.”

“Educational processes require spaces of coexistence that foster encounters—places for shared activities and emotions,” said Plaut and Sarovic. The projects exhibited in CAMPUS AULA include flexible, multi-programmatic spaces where new types of learning can occur as well as places that mediate the relationship between the interior and exterior, reenforcing the importance of the student experience with the broader context.”