Beyond translation (L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui / La Arquitectura de hoy) André Bloc and Amancio Williams in the editorial management of a magazine for South America

Abstract

In 1946 André Bloc, director of the French magazine L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, started a project to publish it in Argentina and distribute it in South America. The project went beyond a simple translation into Spanish by including articles and works of regional production.

Between 1947 and 1949, fourteen issues were published in a discontinuous frequency, an experience that speaks both of the situation in France in the second postwar period, and of the South American environment (in particular Argentina and Brazil) seen as a powerful and powerful promising context open to the future. When details of its production are known, the episode behind La arquitectura de hoy reveals aspects of the international panorama of modern architecture and the role of interpersonal networks for its circulation; although in its pages Amancio Williams was the most published author, the knowledge about his importance in the previous steps and in the development of the magazine is insufficient.