Martha Levisman de Clusellas (18 August 1933 – 13 June 2022) was an Argentine architect, archivist, and historian. She was best known for the three buildings of the Antorchas Foundation in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

and for the part she played in the development of the National Library in Buenos Aires. In 1985 she completed the first Antorchas building. Writer Roberto Segren notes how in her work on the first Antorchas building transformed a "decayed palace representative of the anonymous architecture of Italian builders of the late nineteenth century" in the San Telmo neighborhood.

Biography

From 1952 to 1958, she studied at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Buenos Aires, together with Beatriz Goldestein, Nely Cueitel and Nora Monreal. It was during the period of transition when some of the staff were teaching the

Beaux Arts style Beaux-Arts architecture ( , ) was the academic architectural style taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, particularly from the 1830s to the end of the 19th century. It drew upon the principles of French neoclassicism, but also incorpora ...

while others were beginning to turn to

Modernism 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 ...

, especially César Janello and

Tomás Maldonado Tomás Maldonado (25 April 1922 – 26 November 2018) was an Argentine painter, designer and thinker, considered one of the main theorists of design theory of the legendary Ulm Model, a design philosophy developed during his tenure (1954–1967) ...

who taught integral design. She was also able to benefit from the lectures given by

Odilia Suárez Odilia Suárez (12 November 1923 – 11 August 2006) was an Argentine architect, educator and urban planner. After graduating with the Gold Medal for 1950 from the University of Buenos Aires, she studied at Taliesin West with Frank Lloyd Wright ...

and Enriqueta Méoli, both bent on following emerging trends. She was on the point of leaving Buenos Aires to embark on further studies in

Rosario Rosario () is the largest city in the central provinces of Argentina, Argentine province of Santa Fe Province, Santa Fe. The city is located northwest of Buenos Aires, on the west bank of the Paraná River. Rosario is the third-most populous ci ...

where there was a new school of architecture but she stayed in the capital after meeting Gerardo Clusellas (1929–73) who became her business partner, her husband and the father of her three sons. From 1957, she began her career at the university, working under Janello and with Wladimiro Acosta. From 1963 to 1966, she headed first-year practical projects in Alfredo Ibarlucía's department. Later she worked with Mario Tempone. With the return of democracy in 1984, she returned to the Faculty of Architecture at Buenos Aires University as lecturer responsible for cultural events until 1989 when she worked for the dean, undertaking research and arranging historical exhibitions. Between 1998 and 2002, Levisman was Director of ARCA, Argentina's architectural archive centre (Asociación Civil para el Archivo de Arquitectura Contemporánea Argentina); she also served as ARCA's president. As an archivist she has worked for the

Bustillo Bustillo may refer to: Places * Bustillo de Chaves, municipality in the province of Valladolid, Spain *Bustillo del Oro, municipality in the province of Zamora, Spain *Bustillo del Páramo de Carrión, place in the province of Palencia, Spain *Bus ...

family. Levisman has conducted research as a historian into architecture, in one instance arguing that the "Bariloche style" was "created by a group of affluent Argentine developers inspired by 'colonization, illusion and fantasy'". As an architect, she was a member of her husband's firm. The most important completed works included the Antorchas Head Office (1985), the TAREA Foundation building (renovated in 1987) and an addition to the Antorchas complex to house a photograph gallery, completed in 1991. In 1989, she was commissioned to complete work on the National Library, a sizeable project which entailed redrafting plans for the interiors which had been mislaid.

References

Bibliography

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Levisman, Martha 1933 births 2022 deaths Argentine women architects Argentine archivists 20th-century Argentine historians University of Buenos Aires alumni Architectural historians Argentine women historians People from Buenos Aires