LIMABRIT

From brick to concrete

Walking around Lima with your eyes fixed on its architecture can be a very original experience. A few metres from the remains of a pre-Hispanic temple stands a contemporary building designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel. The predominantly modern architecture shares streets with neo-classical, baroque, republican, neo-Peruvian and contemporary. In addition to this, we come across styles of great western influence, a dominance coming from a continental Euro-centrism that contrasts with another European typology but this time an insular one: British architecture.

The categorisation of an architectural style is always a difficult task. The permanent feedback of styles, cultures, periods and adaptations makes it difficult to clearly delimit trends. The British style is no exception. In its most traditional architecture we can observe a variety of movements, including Gothic, Tudor, English Classicism, Queen Anne. The British Isles were also heavily influenced by foreign influences, in particular the old Dutch style. However, we can highlight attempts at a British imprint in Lima, not only in the architecture, but above all in the development of the city. The foundation of the British Cemetery (1834), the Lima-Chorrillos railway (1858), the English stadium – today the National Stadium – (1923), the design of private housing (1930-1950), and the participation of the renowned British architect James Stirling – winner of the Pritzker Prize in 1981 – in the avant-garde social housing project PREVI in 1973, are milestones that comprise almost a century and a half of British presence in the evolution of Lima towards a modern city and a modern society.

LIMABRIT proposes a reflection on the influence of British architecture in Lima through a selection of architectural and urban projects. Whether from a documentary perspective or a more conceptual approach, the exhibition recognises three types of projects that make up this attribution: 1) projects that obey a British foreign policy (remnants of a late colonising spirit), 2) commissions inspired by a typically British aesthetic, 3) initiatives in which a British architect was directly involved in their design or materialisation.

From a social approach, the British in architecture and design takes on special relevance through the everyday way of life, the neighbourhood, the house and the home. While from a formalist point of view, the classic English brick – which later, in the 60s and 70s, was reinterpreted together with concrete by British “neo-brutalism” – has left its mark on the streets of our city. Apart from local uses and regulations, the materials and techniques available, geographical and climatic factors, and economic contexts, British urban culture has its own history in Lima, with its main legacy in the paradigm of industrialisation as an economic, political and social fact. The British heritage is inserted into the eclectic fabric of Lima as a witness to a heterogeneous and complex city in search of its own path and identity.