Eladio Dieste (December 1, 1917 – July 29, 2000) was a
Uruguay
Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...
an
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considerin ...
who made his reputation by building a range of structures from grain silos, factory sheds, markets and churches, most of them in Uruguay and all of exceptional elegance.
Biography
Dieste was born in
Artigas department
Artigas Department ( es, Departamento de Artigas, ) is the northernmost department of Uruguay, located in its northwestern region. Its capital is the city of Artigas, which borders on the Brazilian city of Quaraí. Artigas Department has an area ...
. His uncle was the Spanish poet
Rafael Dieste
Rafael Dieste (Rianxo, 1899–Santiago de Compostela, 1981) was a Galician poet, philosopher, short-story writer, and dramatist writing mostly in Galician language, but also in Spanish language. He began to write with the encouragement of another ...
.
A particular innovation was his
Gaussian
Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) is the eponym of all of the topics listed below.
There are over 100 topics all named after this German mathematician and scientist, all in the fields of mathematics, physics, and astronomy. The English eponym ...
vault
Vault may refer to:
* Jumping, the act of propelling oneself upwards
Architecture
* Vault (architecture), an arched form above an enclosed space
* Bank vault, a reinforced room or compartment where valuables are stored
* Burial vault (enclosure ...
, a
thin-shell structure for roofs in single-thickness brick, that derives its stiffness and strength from a double curvature
catenary arch
A catenary arch is a type of architectural arch that follows an inverted catenary curve. The catenary curve has been employed in buildings since ancient times. It forms an underlying principle to the overall system of vaults and buttresses i ...
form that resists
buckling
In structural engineering, buckling is the sudden change in shape ( deformation) of a structural component under load, such as the bowing of a column under compression or the wrinkling of a plate under shear. If a structure is subjected to a ...
failure.
There were several architects and engineers in South and Latin America who were working in the
modernist
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
language, such as
Guillermo Gonzalez Zuleta
Guillermo () is the Spanish form of the male given name William. The name is also commonly shortened to 'Guille' or, in Latin America, to nickname 'Memo'. People
*Guillermo Amor (born 1967), Spanish football manager and former player
*Guillermo Ar� ...
in
Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the ...
,
Carlos Raúl Villanueva
Carlos Raúl Villanueva Astoul (May 30, 1900 – August 16, 1975) was a Venezuelan modernist architect. Villanueva went for the first time to Venezuela when he was 28 years old. He was involved in the development and modernization of Caracas, ...
in
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
and
Félix Candela in
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...
, who brought architecture and structural engineering into close proximity, especially when undertaking humble commissions. His buildings were mostly roofed with thin shell vaults constructed of brick and ceramic tiles. These forms were cheaper than reinforced concrete, and didn't require ribs and beams. In developing this approach, even in comparison with modernists the world over, he was an innovator.
Dieste is quoted about his use of materials and structure:
:''There are deep moral/practical reasons for our search which give form to our work: with the form we create we can adjust to the laws of matter with all reverence, forming a dialogue with reality and its mysteries in essential communion... For architecture to be truly constructed, the materials must be used with profound respect for their essence and possibilities; only thus can 'cosmic economy' be achieved... in agreement with the profound order of the world; only then can have that authority that so astounds us in the great works of the past''.
With regard to structure Dieste stated:
:''The resistant virtues of the structure that we make depend on their form; it is through their form that they are stable and not because of an awkward accumulation of materials. There is nothing more noble and elegant from an intellectual viewpoint than this; resistance through form''.
[Quoted from ''Eladio Dieste – The Engineer's Contribution to Contemporary Architecture'', page 21.]
Many of the techniques that he developed to achieve these forms, such as pre-stressing of brickwork and moveable formworks, were in advance of contemporary techniques in the developed world.
He died, aged 82, in
Montevideo
Montevideo () is the capital and largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2011 census, the city proper has a population of 1,319,108 (about one-third of the country's total population) in an area of . Montevideo is situated on the southern co ...
.
Selected works
*
St. Peter Church in
Durazno
Durazno is the capital city of the department of Durazno in Uruguay. Durazno is characterized by being the most central city of Uruguay. It has a population of more than 30,000 inhabitants. In the past it was the capital of Uruguay; today the ca ...
*
Christ the Worker Church in
Estación Atlántida
Estación Atlántida is a northern suburb of the city Atlántida in the Canelones Department of southern Uruguay.
Geography Location
The suburb is located on Route 11, about north of its junction with Ruta Interbalnearia. The railroad track th ...
[ ]
*
Church of Our Lady of Lourdes in
Malvín
Malvín is a ''barrio'' (neighbourhood or district) of Montevideo, Uruguay.
Location
Malvín borders Buceo to the west, Malvín Norte and Las Canteras to the north, Punta Gorda to the east and the coastline to the south.
Economy
The coastal av ...
*
St. John of Avila Church in
Alcalá de Henares
Alcalá de Henares () is a Spanish city in the Community of Madrid. Straddling the Henares River, it is located to the northeast of the centre of Madrid. , it has a population of 193,751, making it the region's third-most populated municipality ...
*
Teatro de Verano Ramón Collazo
Teatro may refer to:
* Theatre
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific ...
in
Montevideo
Montevideo () is the capital and largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2011 census, the city proper has a population of 1,319,108 (about one-third of the country's total population) in an area of . Montevideo is situated on the southern co ...
*
Montevideo Shopping
Montevideo Shopping Center is the first shopping mall that opened in Montevideo, Uruguay. It is located in the neighborhood Buceo, on the border with Pocitos, right in front of the World Trade Center Montevideo.
The mall
Opened in 1985 and l ...
(structure of the first stage, 1985; architect:
Guillermo Gómez Platero
Guillermo () is the Spanish form of the male given name William. The name is also commonly shortened to 'Guille' or, in Latin America, to nickname 'Memo'. People
*Guillermo Amor (born 1967), Spanish football manager and former player
*Guillermo Ar� ...
)
*
Church of St. Charles Borromeo (structural calculation, 1956; architect:
Juan Pablo Terra)
References
Sources
* ,
*
*
* Fausto Giovannardi
"Eladio Dieste: un'ingegneria magica"Fausto Giovannardi Borgo San Lorenzo, 2007.
External links
*
Structurae: Eladio Dieste
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dieste, Eladio
1917 births
2000 deaths
Uruguayan civil engineers
University of the Republic (Uruguay) alumni
Modernist architects
Ecclesiastical architects
People from Artigas Department
Uruguayan people of German descent
20th-century Uruguayan architects
20th-century Uruguayan engineers