Foundations of the modernity of the architecture of Quito of the xx century: an explanatory analysis of their origin in the city

Abstract

The architectural texts that study modernity in the city of Quito are mostly a collection of buildings or authors and descriptions of their works, and because of this, they do not contribute to an understanding of how modernity was represented in the city. Consequently, there is a lack of work that addresses the facts that influenced how the manifestations and expressions of modernity materialized both in society and the architecture of the city. This article makes a chronological review, intertwining the historical facts of Ecuador from the political, the economic, and social, to explain the reasons for how the foundations of modernity were laid in the city of Quito. The explanation is made within a frame of understanding modernity from the views of authors such as Bolívar Echeverría and David Harvey, proposing an analysis of the historical particularities of the country and the city. For this the growth of the city is analyzed, identifying the representative expressions architectural and evidencing the moments in which the foundations of modernity were presented and developed particularities that were manifested in the city of Quito in response to its own social, economic, and political model. The work concludes that in the case of the modern architecture of Quito, the theoretical, technological, and morphological development begins to be established at the end of the thirties, laying the foundations of a modernity that is analyzed through a change in behavior, as described by Echeverría and, above all, because clearly identifiable material elements of modernity are present, as proposed by Harvey.