Vicente Nasi in Colombia (1927-1952): pioniere moderno o eclettico sopravvissuto?

This essay focuses on Vicente Nasi’s activity in Colombia, from his arrival as a surveyor in 1927 to the early 1950s, when, after having earned a degree
in Architecture, he left the country heading for Venezuela. It explores his varied and eclectic production as well as some projects displaying an early
modernist character, stressing the importance of his relationship with a politically well-defned clientele that included many outstanding personalities from
the Colombian Liberal Party. By doing so, this text highlights Nasi’s role in the modernisation of the architectural language in the country and the partial
and ambiguous way in which the Liberal elite embraced architectural modernism during the 1930s. Later on, some projects of the early 1940s displayed
an original interest in adapting the international language of modernism to local conditions. These works were published in well-known architectural
magazines and praised by Le Corbusier, thus helping Nasi in presenting himself as a pioneer of modernism in the country. The politically troubled passage
to the 1950s marked the decline of the Liberal Party’s hegemony and coincided with a slowdown in Nasi’s professional activity. In the meantime, the
consolidation of modernism rapidly transformed the profession, showing all the limits of Nasi’s production. At the end, this essay questions his role in
Colombia, emphasising his importance in indirectly developing a link between architectural modernism and politics, but also stressing his uninterrupted
eclectic production as well as his reluctance to fully embrace the internationalist aesthetics at the end of the 1940s. In this regard, it is has to be noticed
how the Italian presented himself in two very different moments of his career: frstly as a modernist pioneer and later as an architect pursuing the value of
“continuity”, when in the 1980s a different set of values was underpinning the Latin American architectural debate.