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Having graduated in 1974 at the University of Buenos Aires, Jorge Hampton (1945) and Emilio Rivoira (1948) inaugurated their own architectural studio in 1984, after a wide experience wich includes participation in importan architectural firms, both local and foreign; in international planning work and in university lecturing.
Let two definitions alone introduce their work. Hampton / Rivoira see in design a cultural vehicle to improve the built enviroment and in the project a collection of sensible information. They also recognize themselves as professionals of a process, never a style.
In the work of Hampton / Rivoira is present, above all, their humanity. An urbane humanty which they translate (or, perhaps, translight) in their various iniciatives and built work and which can be appreciated both in the intimacy of the house at Costa Rica and Gurruchaga as much as in the large office building at Avenida Dávila y Viamonte, where they acted as local associates to the pretigeous New York office Kohn, Pedersen and Fox.
We have referred to their urbane humanity. And it is no exageration: architecture sometimes disconnects from its primary objetive which is, at the same time, its point of origin. Where Hampton / Rivoira call their architectural design cultural vehicles they refer to creation and also to the created. But they establish a relation between both terms; and therefore feel themselves as process professionals which conducts them from drawing-board to building, from creation to the created, via a project which is the movilizer, the depository and the diffusor of the sensible information. That is why there is no difference, exept those obvious to format and typology, beetween their different works.
The rehabilitations in Palermo Viejo and Puerto Madero; the proposals for Punta Carrasco, for the Banco de Boston and office buildings, all proclaim the same conception of architecture as a means to house people of flesh and bone and not simple numbers on a list.
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ideas y opinionesideas and opinions
hampton/rivoira:
urbane humanity
Jorge Glusberg. 1995.
| If in Palermo Viejo (Bar el Taller, Casa Rivoira, Casa de Costa Rica y Gurruchaga, Casa Hampton, their former office at pasaje Soria 5020) they proposed themselves as rescuers of a typical barrio situation – architecture, which is a continuation, and not a copy; which does not repeat but rather interpret in works as different as Punta Carrasco is to the Banesto / Banco Shaw bank branches, in which the urgency of production is reflected in the insertion in the urban system. The interventions of Hampton/Rivoira refer, therefore, to the context, wich however, is not an isolated territory nor a neutral space but rather a part of a whole.
Thus, the architectural landscape to be seen at Punta Carrasco is equivalent to the interiors of the Banesto / Shaw bank branches as is clearly visible upon observing plans of both works. Both extend towards the city, one from the outside and the other does the same thing from the inside. In the former architecture adopts a site and in the latter it is the site which adopts architecture.
A combination of both procedures can be seen at the # 1 house in Puerto Madero proposed as an exhibition and sales centre and also at the Puerto Madero dock front converted for public use. In the first, the result was predeterminated by the building losing part of its volume due to the autopista Buenos Aires / La Plata; in the second they emphasized the port character of the place, and therefore the city, which has become a public part of puerto Madero.
Art must hide the artist, said the Latin Poet. Hampton / Rivoira don’t hide, but then, they don’t try to outstand beyond their architecture. On the contrary, they prefer that their designs validate themselves as natural objects. This is the essence of their art, which is true to the good makers of contemporary architecture.... as this exhibition clearly demonstrates.
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