Criticism and Humanism in Javier Carvajals spanish pavilion in New York

Abstract

The silent presence of the great pavilion in Corona Park at the New York Worlds Fair (1964) is representative of Javier Carvajals proposal for an alternative city integrated into nature. Industrial and artisan materials are rhythmically repeated to the exhibition contents in a synthesis of cultural values in which the Nordic model, integrating the everyday and natural, is added to the monumentality and sensoriality of tradition interpreted in a contemporary key. Especially of the Alhambra, recognizable from the cushioned-mural of the prefabricated cladding of its hermetic exterior volume to the natural paradise of the interior formed by the courtyard-garden and the suspended ceiling firmament, in a fluid atmosphere full of mystery, shadow and backlighting furnished with the padded Granada armchair. The criticism of a dehumanized urban growth, the technique applied to spaces made for living oriented from climate adaptation, the cultural revision of the Alhambra Manifesto and the affirmation of the principles of the modern masters, align the proposal of the New York Pavilion by Javier Carvajal with the critical and humanist aspects (Ockman, 1993) that characterized, in the significant period of transition between modernity and post-modernism, the international avant-garde architecture.