Our work, conducted between research and teaching, has been an effort to foster knowledge of liberation architecture, which emerged culturally and physically in Latin America at the end of the 1920s. This architecture followed paths that were previously underestimated but were highly interconnected with those of other non-aligned regions, forming a tricontinental modernity of the Global South: vigorous, liberating, and extraordinarily creative and diverse.

Our disciplinary challenge is, therefore, to bring to light, document, concretely articulate, and theoretically consolidate the advances and achievements of the modern movement in Southern countries, which are, at the same time, both specific and universal.

Our interconnected investigations focus on demonstrating the need for a decolonization of architectural thought. In this regard, we proceed by illustrating and documenting endogenous concepts such as the centrality of the periphery and the irreversible and irrepressible potential of the invisible (Mariátegui, 2015).

The understanding of modernity as a global and symbiotic event justifies this essay. It is global because, as a cultural extension of the Industrial Revolution, it reached regions that were more or less connected to the world order. It is symbiotic because, despite the hegemonic Eurocentric discourse, we assert the constant feedback loop in artistic experimentation processes that equates the experiences across all continents.

Africa, Asia, and Latin America were sidelined in the modern historiographical construction sponsored by central capitalism and their contributions need to be revisited. The choice of singular figures from Brazil, Morocco, and Cambodia exemplifies a more complex and comprehensive process, summarized here in points of comparative analysis that seek to identify both coincidences and divergences.

We will comparatively discuss the works of Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012), Jean-François Zevaco (1916-2003), and Vann Molyvann (1926-2017), in an essay organized into two sections. The first explores the aspects shaped by the reading of the territory, understood as the conjunction of the physical and human factors of the place where architecture develops. It highlights strategies for embracing vernacular contributions and interpreting them through the lens of modern tools. The second section delves into the constructive terms of the architects’ thought, identifying structural contextualism as a deliberate plastic action.

Oscar Niemeyer was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1907. His first significant contribution was as part of the team that designed the Ministry of Education and Health, coordinated by his professor Lucio Costa, based on the blueprint by Le Corbusier. In the early 1940s, Niemeyer was invited by the mayor of Belo Horizonte, the future president Juscelino Kubitschek, to design a set of buildings around Pampulha Lagoon, where he established his distinctive plastic language, combining the celebration of the flexibility of reinforced concrete with references to the cultural foundations of Brazil’s colonial past. Elevated to international icon status by the MoMA in New York³, Niemeyer became the foremost reference in 20th-century Brazilian architecture.

Zevaco was born in Casablanca in 1916 but studied architecture in Paris. He was a student of Auguste Perret and interned in Marseille with Eugène Beaudoin during the Nazi occupation. Upon returning to Morocco, his first recognized project was the Villa Suissa, a private residence that demonstrated his keen eye for modernity-here filtered through the Californian experience, perhaps already indicating a sensitivity to climate as a necessity. He began his career heavily influenced by the international highlights of modernity in the 1940s, with Oscar Niemeyer among them. He later revealed an influence from the Berber construction tradition, characterized by an inclination toward enclosing buildings from the outside and establishing a materialized relationship with the ground through carefully considered structural support solutions.

Vann Molyvann was born in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, in 1926. He moved from the countryside to the capital, where he secured a scholarship to study in France. Upon his return in 1956, he became the first architect in the country with such training, which positioned him as the primary collaborator of the ruling regime until the 1970 coup d’état. Molyvann carried out numerous public works commissioned by the central government, driven by the spirit of modernity and influenced by the desire to celebrate the historical grandeur of khmer⁴ civilization. This historical legacy served as the foundation and justification for his architectural approach.

The first point of convergence between the three architects, as described in this essay, is the development of an essentially modern working methodology that incorporates contextual data. It is notable that even in their early projects-predecessors of their mature phases and international recognition-their architectural strategies integrated the nuances of their respective territories into the rationalist framework.

The notion of context here is taken in its broadest sense: it encompasses the physical data of geography and climate as the first layer, but also calls upon human interpretations and adaptations. It is in this realm that the reference to the vernacular, popular knowledge, and the construction traditions that bind human complexity to its site becomes relevant.

Without aiming to construct a chronological reading of these processes, it is important to point out that three more or less recognizable phases exist in the work of these architects, with distinctions related to their methodological mechanisms for interpreting context. The first phase draws on the territory as a source of symbolic reference, invoking icons of tradition as part of an architectural discourse that aimed to be attentive to context. This approach is based on explicit representational devices, a Figuretive appropriation of elements from local traditions. The second phase involves a typological approach, incorporating vernacular strategies into spatial solutions, meaning the recreation of formal solutions derived from local tradition.

In summary, the first phase maintains an evocation of context in the more superficial and explicit layers of the project, with clear discursive responsibilities, while the second phase brings these references into the deeper layers of design conception, dissolving figurative intentions into spatial solutions.

We arrive, finally, at the description of a third phase in the work of these architects, where the associations are forged in the intellectual realm, without direct physical demonstrations of affiliation.

There are no longer explicit references, but rather an existential alignment with a certain cultural order, which amplifies the formal freedom of the works while maintaining the contextual effort in a secure, though abstract, framework.

These three stages do not outline a linear or exclusive process; they are merely analytical categories that guide the reflections presented in this work. In the following sections, we will explore aspects of the architects’ works in parallel, establishing the points of contact that are of interest.

We begin in the Americas. For Niemeyer, the architectural discourse always aligned with the cultural identity forged in modern Brazil, characterized by the idea of a festive and sexualized nation that faces the hardships of colonization with lightness and joy. This is the Brazil of Bossa Nova, the “cordial Brazil” of Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, more invested in the promising idea of the future than in the effective confrontation of inherited inequalities (Holanda, 1995). This is the intellectual context to which Niemeyer is connected, with the necessary caveat regarding his political stance: he was not a man at ease with Brazilian social violence, but rather incorporated this unease into a positivist action, believing that architecture designed for everyone could indeed be appropriated by everyone.

Regarding urban culture, Brazilian modernity aligned itself with what was available: the European urban tradition, more specifically Mediterranean, filtered through Portuguese colonialism. As Giulio Carlo Argan reminds us (2003, p. 170):

Unlike the civilizations in the northern parts of the continent, the indigenous populations of the southern cone developed in small, isolated communities, without movements toward centralization of power and, consequently, without significant urban agglomerations.

It is in this context that Lucio Costa’s early theorized alignment with European urban culture can be justified, a connection made effortlessly by Brazilian architects. Júlio Katinsky highlights an urban condition that is particularly and repeatedly pursued by them: the secular, ecumenical void of the Mediterranean tradition, that is, the portion of urban space dedicated to social interaction (Katinsky, 1981). Additionally, Brazilian architects absorbed the perception that the chances of a radical modern transformation in cities were remote, and therefore, it was up to architecture to provide the desired transformations for cities, even if only in a fragmented manner.

Oscar Niemeyer incorporates the square as an organizing element in his architectural complexes, both in his discourse and practice, reflecting the virtues of the informal, every day, and spontaneous meeting space of Mediterranean tradition. A notable example is the tension faced during the design of the United Nations Headquarters in New York (1947). The young Brazilian, invited to join the project development team, had his version celebrated by his peers: three functionally distinct blocks, each facing the East River, arranged around a central void, the United Nations Plaza. However, Le Corbusier, also a member and undoubtedly a central figure of the team, insisted that the highlight should be the General Assembly building. As a result, the plaza was discarded, and the Swiss architect’s solution prevailed.

In the projects developed in France, perhaps with heightened attention due to the responsibility of working as a foreigner, Niemeyer reaffirms this same motivation by proposing solutions that begin with the empty space. In the headquarters of the French Communist Party (Paris, 1965), the primary challenge seems to be creating a mediating solution between the desired square and the strict Haussmannian grid of the block. With a highly contextual intervention, Niemeyer designs a building responsible for transitioning between these two extremes a curved block that aligns with the two streets that define the site. The corner is freed up to create the desired square, which supports the auditorium block, a structure that-perhaps echoing Le Corbusier’s lesson at the UN-receives the prominence it deserves (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Source: Author’s photograph (2023)

In Le Havre, Niemeyer was invited to design the city’s Cultural Center and faced what seemed to be a more complex challenge. Rather than creating a respectful counterpoint as in Paris, the approach was more integrative with the urban fabric developed decades earlier by Auguste Perret during the city’s reconstruction. However, the square remained the organizing element, although in Niemeyer’s discourse, it appeared as an environmental control feature (lowered, it was defended by the architect as a strategy to protect against the wind). This design emphasized the urban void as a place of passage, not just for accessing the created programs, but as a square for everyday use (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Source: Author’s photograph (2023).

Shifting to Asia, in a similar vein, Vann Molyvann also drew on the ancient urban tradition as the existential compass of his projects, guided by the symbolic recognition of the Angkor complex. Discovered in ruins in the jungle by a French researcher just a few decades earlier, Angkor sparked global curiosity and interest due to its impressive array of temples, built in the 12th century, in an agglomeration that housed around one million inhabitants.

The movement was one of national affirmation, manipulating an identity-based sentiment to reclaim the glories of the past; as usual, architecture was called upon to materialize this phenomenon. Phnom Penh, the capital of the country, was redesigned during the post-independence period as a showcase for the new regime, simultaneously promoting the symbolic power of Khmer tradition and alignment with the global avant-garde, represented by modern architecture (Ross; Colins, 2006).

Cambodia, however, was predominantly an agricultural country; the investment efforts in the capital aimed at initiating an urbanization process, but it was clear that the urban tradition in the country was a novelty, sketched only during the French colonization. It is within this context that Molyvann shifted his focus, directing the construction of his urban references to what had been the country’s only great city: Angkor.

A closer examination of Angkor Wat, the main temple of the archaeological site, reveals a sequence of columns forming a kind of continuous external gallery that runs along the entire defensive perimeter of the structure. Unlike similar situations found in Europe such as in Italian loggias or the covered walkways of medieval France the gallery faces outward, not toward a contiguous square. The covered walkway is therefore suggested as part of the access route, requiring visitors to pass through several layers of filtering before reaching the temple, which is protected by a series of concentric walls and colonnades that emphasize the effort of this pilgrimage. As is common in Hindu tradition⁵, there is a celebration of the interval between exterior and interior, between sacred and profane, much like what is seen in Indian ceremonial wells (baori), where access to the object of worship-water, in this case-is preceded by multiple and intimidating stairways.

The hypothesis proposed is that this spatial experience of transposition impacts Molyvann’s design process, particularly in his composition of unoccupied ground floors. The design of the Preah Suramarit National Theatre (Phnom Penh, 1958-1967) is an example. In the context of cultural affirmation, a theater is strategic a temple of culture that must be celebrated as such. The access is a celebrated feature: the open ground floor ensures a gradual approach, from sunlight to shade, open and with a view of the river; from the ground level to the upper floor, still without temperature control, filtering only ventilation and light; from the grand foyer to the performance hall. The journey recreates the ceremonial access to Angkor Wat, adapting it to the proportions of the new program (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Source: Adaptor-Plug.

However, it is with the design for a complex of 100 houses in Tuk Thla (Phnom Penh, 1965-1967) that Molyvann reveals his strategy more explicitly, particularly by interpreting a popular typological model without relying on the more commonly recurring references to noble architecture in his work.

In the Tuk Thla project, we see an almost literal recreation of the traditional Khmer wooden houses, with the reproduction of spatial typological solutions adapted to updated construction techniques, notably the use of concrete structure. The challenge of large-scale construction, aimed at a more general audience, forces the architect to seek solutions that are justified by common sense, in this case recognized in the validation of tradition.

The particularity of a completely unoccupied ground space, originally derived from climatic factors (elevating the floor to protect it from potential moisture, creating a ventilated buffer between the ground and the house, and, above all, protection from occasional flooding), is recreated in light of Corbusian principles. The pilotis establish a transitional space between public and private, giving a ceremonial character to the vertical access to the house, while also returning the projected area of the building to collective use-not entirely public since it consists of urban houses, but serving as a shared space among the residents.

The access route, as in the traditional model used as a reference, requires a threshold spatially expressed in the form of an upper-floor veranda, particularly useful in tropical climates. All the rooms open onto it, simultaneously converting it into both a circulation hub and a filter for the more intimate spaces. A second staircase, directly connected to the more private section of the living room, reinforces the idea that the veranda serves as the social, more public access, while a restricted connection is allowed between the pilotis and the private area via a duplicated path.

This description almost inevitably leads to a comparison with a project by Lúcio Costa, referenced here due to his paternal connection to Oscar Niemeyer. In describing his design for the Parque Guinle apartment complex (Rio de Janeiro, 1954), Costa states the following:

In a kind of intellectual exercise, Lúcio Costa manages to import a relationship with indigenous architecture through the duplication of the veranda space covered but without complete enclosure from the exterior. In the apartments of Parque Guinle - besides offering the exception that validates the rule interpreted by Argan - he proposes a larger, more social veranda near the main entrance, and a second, more domestic one, connected to kitchen activities and reserved for the residents’ use. The veranda, as a mediating space for access, is employed in several other projects, serving as a typological reference to Brazilian architecture - whether indigenous, bandeirantes⁶ or the rural coffee aristocracy.

Certainly influenced by his first mentor, Oscar Niemeyer carries the veranda concept into some of his works, initially reproducing material language references (such as balustrades and wooden enclosures) and later refining these stylistic elements into a more sophisticated typological spatial proposition. This solution also aligns with the modern aspiration to blur the boundaries between exterior and interior, a goal more easily achieved in geographic contexts that do not have to contend with harsh winters. It is worth noting that this modern pursuit was a direct result of technical advancements in construction, which allowed for the separation of structural elements from the enclosure, celebrated by openings that could, at last, extend across the entire surface of façades. Additionally, as a comparative point, it is important to recall that Asian architecture has long separated structure from enclosure, a feature that became a source of admiration for European modern architects.

The programmatic revival of verandas is, therefore, a strategy with dual appeal in Niemeyer’s work, as it simultaneously addresses the desire for contextualization and affiliation with the new modern tradition. In projects such as the Grande Hotel (Ouro Preto, 1938), the veranda reclaims the role of intermediary space, as noted by Costa, serving as a public destination reached by a ramp - also functioning as a veranda - that navigates the slope of the street (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Source: © Heitor de Bittencourt.

In Brasília, the ceremonial nature of the palaces designed by Niemeyer elevates the veranda to a monumental status, without losing its role as an intermediary between public and private, between exterior and interior. At the same time, it is embraced as a formal solution for disconnecting the structure from the enclosed prism of the building. In the Palácio do Planalto (1958), the seat of the federal government, the veranda completes the ascent of the access ramp and allows for a covered walk to the speaker’s platform (parlatório), highlighting symbolic stages in the choreography of power transitions between presidents. In the Palácio da Alvorada (1957), the official residence of the president, the two verandas of Parque Guinle are revived; in this case, the noble character is reaffirmed with an abundance of aristocratic finishes on the public veranda, contrasting with the subdued logic of the private veranda, aligned with the simpler enclosure system. In both cases, the void created by the veranda brings the structural elements into focus, detached from the enclosure planes and extending the spatiality to the entire perimeter of the building, reminiscent of the peristyles typical of Athenian temple.

We now arrive in Africa. Jean-François Zevaco is one of the few 20th-century architects who was able to explore in a contextualized and thus secure manner the spatial matrices of the casbah, the housing typology of Berber urban centers. In doing so, he fulfilled a desire expressed by many of his contemporaries, from Le Corbusier to Aldo van Eyck.

As Jean-Lucien Bonillo states, North African typology has been part of the architectural reference horizon since the revivalist movements that followed the first insurrections against academicism, passing through the highly personal universe of Corbusian language, to the phenomenological investigations of the Team Ten movement (Bonillo, 2006).

The revivalists’ approach remained at superficial levels, with the reproduction of symbolic references, reflecting European architecture’s hypnotic affection for Oriental citations, but without any associated spatial investigation. For Le Corbusier, however, the casbah - particularly that of Algiers, to which he devoted great attention - had a deeper impact on his theoretical framework. His work reveals clear appropriations of constructive criteria found in North Africa that reinforced his modern formulations: the flat roof, the sober volumes and materials, and the attention to color under sunlight.

Le Corbusier’s greatest praise for Berber urban culture, however, concerns the human density that these agglomerations enable, and the diversity contained within a defining formal piece that forces individuals to coexist within a universe structured by architectural design. This idea is clearly reflected in his casbah-inspired projects, such as the Roq and Rob housing complex (1949) and the linear building of the Plan Obus (1930).

Lastly, following Bonillo’s reasoning, the architects of Team Ten borrowed from the casbah the urbanistic notion - also applicable to architecture - of a network-like arrangement, where elements are organized polycentrically, enhancing the dynamism in the relationships between various parts. This can be seen, for example, in Aldo van Eyck’s Amsterdam orphanage project (1960).

Zevaco navigated through these three types of experiences: he incorporated explicit signs of local tradition, negotiated with light and enclosure, and finally invested in the multiplication of centrality poles in some of his projects. We begin with the most evident aspect of this approach: the effort to internalize the architectural experience. His architecture rarely offers references to desired landscape views or openings toward the horizon; following the Berber vernacular tradition, he treats the exterior as a threat.

By definition, the casbah is a fortified structure - or group of structures - with very few openings to the outside, serving as a response to both human enemies and the dramatic interactions with nature (sandstorms, excessive heat, and sunlight). Unlike European medieval fortifications, which simulated unprotected urban life within the walls - with squares and public spaces for social interaction - the casbah takes protection to the extreme, often becoming a habitable wall itself. There is little concession to transitional elements, with a clear and minimized boundary between interior and exterior (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Source: © Frac Centre-Val de Loire

This condition is celebrated by Zevaco: the façade, as an element of enclosure rather than a representation of transition, becomes the driving force behind design decisions. It serves as the foundation for the most significant architectural expression in projects like the post office headquarters (Agadir, 1963) and the Societé Marroc office building in Rabat (1989). In this context, Zevaco feels free to distance himself from the purist frameworks of the modern movement and employs decorative devices that echo the celebratory discourse of enclosure: the building is opaque, with limited transparency and minimal accessibility from the street, yet presents itself to the city as a sculpted rock, becoming part of the landscape. Just like the casbah, which, built from adobe blocks-material derived from the very geological conditions of its surroundings becomes inseparable from the horizon that contains it.

The other side of this decision is precisely its interior development: minimal contact with the exterior allows for a more poetic and often cathartic exploration of lighting solutions. Courtyards become immensely important, along with other devices for capturing the vast sunlight of the Maghreb. This is evident in the design of Villa Zevaco (Casablanca, 1975), where the ground-level layout allows for a spiral arrangement of spaces around a core illuminated by a circular zenithal opening, organizing the living room as a simulacrum of the nomadic desert tents’ gathering spaces (Figure 6).

Figure 6. Source: © Frac Centre-Val de Loire.

This same celebration of interior space guides the design of the Beni Mellal Courthouse (1960), a square-based building with four wings facing an internal courtyard, where the main courtroom volume is elevated. Externally, the façades are predominantly blank, inviting a focus on the internal spatial experience. The programs are arranged on the first two floors, freeing up the ground floor for access and circulation, a sort of modern pilotis, though completely enclosed from the outside.

Finally, it is worth describing Zevaco’s incorporation of the polycentric network organization of the casbah, using two examples: the Yasmina Hotel (Cabo Negro, 1968) and the Thermal Station of Sidi-Harazem (1960). The complex program of a hotel is addressed in Cabo Negro with a non-simplifying strategy, meaning no volumetric synthesis or formal geometric block adaptations. The layout responds to the topographic conditions, taking advantage of the terrain to multiply the views from the rooms here, celebrated. The program spreads across the territory in a tentacular manner, creating focal points that do not repeat formal decisions: the rooms develop linearly, multiplying staggered horizontal corridors that open the rooms toward the sea; a courtyard separates the rooms from the leisure areas; and finally, or as an entrance, Zevaco recreates the enclosed interior void, open to the sky, with multiple pillar-beams supporting a concrete shell that welcomes visitors (Figure 7).

Figure 7. Source: © Frac Centre-Val de Loire.

In Sidi-Harazem, Zevaco, faced with the challenge of designing a program to celebrate the existence of an oasis in the desert, a rare thermal spring, uses water as the central element of the project. Through strategies of control and the creation of plasticity-human action upon this natural element the project takes shape. From this understanding arise the mirrors, paths, wells, and pools that generate a spatial plurality, enhanced by the architect’s artistic intervention (Privitera, 2018). As in Cabo Negro, the focus is on diversity rather than synthesis; formal and programmatic hubs colonize various sectors of the site, interconnected by strategies mediated through water. The Berber urban network, as referenced by Bonillo, materializes here as in few other instances (Figure 8).

Figure 8. Source: © Julien Lanoo.

The challenge of describing the project is amplified by the profusion of uses and spatial situations, but it is addressed concisely below. The aquatic center, hotel, and commercial zone are the three main programmatic sectors; however, it is the articulation elements that receive the most significant artistic investment.

The pool complex occupies the edge of the site, off the central axis of the layout, like an arm reaching toward the plain of the water source. Two circular pools⁷ sit on a geometrically shaped platform, set against a backdrop of arid mountains the ultimate representation of the desert landscape. This is the symbolic depiction of an oasis, offered for public leisure use. Access to the platform is mediated by a series of small buildings that face the narrowing passage through a hill towards the main axis of the complex. Most of these structures, built primarily from exposed concrete, explicitly recreate traditional Berber techniques, with simplified volumes and minimal, controlled openings. The intense, direct light is incorporated into the poetic discourse through the chromatic variation of select volumes, which stand out from the complex’s mimetic relationship with the landscape, and through pergolas that cast exceptional strips of shade along the path.

The main axis connects the hotel to the commercial area (ryad). The hotel consists of two perpendicular prismatic blocks, employing a stark modern compositional language in the design of the façades with openings. The rooms are clearly legible from the exterior, with balconies that alternate yet remain continuous, shaped through a purely graphic operation in the construction of the enclosing elements.

The supports of the blocks, V-shaped double pillars, hint at what unfolds in the following sectors: a profusion of plastic experimentation, free from geometric standardization except for the material choice exposed reinforced concrete serves as the common thread. The ryad is a square plaza covered by a repetition of concrete pyramidal modules, evoking archetypal figures from local architecture.

The space between the hotel and the ryad is developed as a long water garden, referencing the vernacular typology of the kissariat, walled courtyards filled with gardens and, notably, streams of flowing water. Anticipating the results achieved by Carlo Scarpa in his explorations of water path design, Zevaco draws from North African tradition in an almost innate way, in a context where such citation is thoroughly appropriate. Like Scarpa, Zevaco crafts an homage to the profession itself, dedicating exceptional attention to the design of each spatial situation. Various solutions for handling elevation changes, controlling water flow, designing tanks and planters, and supporting roofs and walkways multiply throughout the site, along with walls and porticos that define the path. The abundance of geometric ornamentation revives the celebrated examples of Arab architecture that have survived to this day (Ragon; Tastemain, 1999).