HENRY KLUMB HOUSE, TROPICAL MODERNITY IN RUINS IN RIO PIEDRAS, SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO. A VISIT

Henry Klumb's house in Rio Piedras, San Juan, Puerto Rico

Klumb's rotating table

view of the dinning room from the outside

the kitchen area, badly affected by a hurricane

gate to Klumb's house

at the house with Klumb expert Enrique Vivoni

Beta Local friends and fellows visiting Klumb's House

earlier in the morning giving a talk at Beta-Local on the Novo Museo Tropical and Tropical Modernity

and Klumb furniture at the documentation centre of the Archivo de Arquitectura y Construcción de la Universidad de Puerto Rico http://aacupr.uprrp.edu/

See a previous post with original photos of the house here

with thanks to Enrique Vivoni from the Archivo de Arquitectura y Construcción de la Universidad de Puerto Rico for opening the house for us

with thanks also to Michy Marxuach and Beta Local, for making my wish come true and organising the visit to Henry Klumb's house, and making possible that finally, after 10 years of going continuously to Puerto Rico I could finally visit Klumb's house. See Beta Local's post on the visit here

Henry Klumb was born in Koln, Germany in 1905 and emigrated to the USA in 1927 to work with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesen West, he also later collaborated with Louis Kahn. In 1944 he moved to Puerto Rico, where he developed an agenda of modernist architecture for the tropics, and was in charge of the new master plan and most of the modern buildings of the University of Puerto Rico. Klumb's own house was located in Rio Piedras, in the outskirts of San Juan, not far from the University where he was designing most of the buildings. The house, located in an existing pineapple plantation, was a traditional wooden house from the XIX century, which was intervened and opened up by Klumb. Walls were brought down and palms planted outside the house to create shade and view. The house was bought by the University after Klumb's dead, but the lack of use and maintenance and the effects of the climate have had an effect on the house, which has become almost a ruin. Now the house has been declared a modern monument and new efforts are being done for its renovation. Hopefully the future (and expensive) renovation, will bring the house back to it's old glory and not transform it into a cartoon of its former self. Klumb's example of tropical modernism becomes even more relevant today in Puerto Rico's contemporary landscape of air conditioned architecture and inhabitants isolated from the exterior world.

download a pdf on Klumb's architecture by Vivoni here.

1ST GRAN BIENAL TROPICAL, 'TROPICO ABIERTO' CURATED BY PABLO LEON DE LA BARRA AT LA COMAI IN SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO

Bubu Negron and Radames Juni Figueroa welcoming Pablo Leon de la Barra to San Juan International Airport, sign hand painted by Jose Lerma


a bienal that fits in a car, with Radames 'Juni' Figueroa, co-curator of the Bienal Tropical and Jose Lerma, production executive director of the Bienal Tropical


art works arriving to La Comay


Jesus 'Bubu' Negron with his mask works


Jesus 'Bubu' Negron, reproduction of folkloric coconut masks made by the artist following traditional production methods


Radames 'Juni ' Figueroa with the Bienal Poster


La Comai street sign

La Comai, Food Kiosk


La Comai, Bienal Tropical Poster


Radames Juni Figueroa, co-curator of the Bienal Tropical

Carolina Caycedo, exercises for female emancipation



Monica Rodriguez, poster for seed granade recipe

Diagrama Tropical, PLB


Karlo Andrei Ibarra, bananas tattooed with phrases related to the implementation of Free Treaties (TLC) between Caribbean and Central American countries with the USA, tattooed by Omar Velazquez

food at la Comay, arepa with conch meat, whisky and coconut water, rice with crab meat!

Michelle and friend installing Katalina Iturralde's Drama Tropical banner

Katalina Iturralde's Drama Tropical banner

Carolina Caycedo, Live Local Love, banner

Tropical Carl Andre, Carolina Caycedo banner, table with Golden Pineapple prizes

Anomymous, Tropical Carl Andre, free recreation with graffiti spray of the floor at La Loseta

Erika Verzutti, Tropical Family, 2011

(done by instructions)


Radames 'Juni' Figueroa, Rainbow

Jose Lerma and Radames 'Juni' Figueroa, somewhere under the rainbow



Naufus Figueroa, watermelon molotov bomb with transvetite underwear
(done by instructions)


Federico Herrero, painted round rock, painted by instructions



Jorge Rodriguez, Mangoneo poster, a hybrid between banana and mango and used in puerto rican slang to mean ____________ and popularised in Melvin Santiago's song el Mangoneo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5blUWLWVoQ

Adriana Lara, Johnny La Gente Esta Muy Loca, banner on side of the road

fake Allora & Calzadilla palm fan

Jose Lerma, graffiti painting done over found doors and palms


Rafael Vargas, Tropical Drink

Stefan Benchoam, coconut pipe for smoking weed
(done by instructions)

Jesus 'Bubu' Negron, coconuts wearing copies of traditional folkloric masks made out of coconuts

Pablo Leon de la Barra, curator of the Bienal Tropical wearing the Cheverismo o Muerte cape, a collaboration between Carolina Caycedo, Beatriz Lopez and PLB

Alana Iturralde, utopic participatory sculpture

Yoyo Rodriguez, Duet of Palms, two microphones on two different palms, amplification of sound made by wind passing through palms, you can listen to the recording here

Hammock by Jesus Bubu Negron, 2004

Chemi Rosado, painting left 40 days under the influence of the jungle (recreation of original painting, now lost, and done in 14 hours!)

Michael Linares, Hombre Mata abstract paintings (Hombre Mata are solitary masturbators who harass woman in the beaches in this area)

Carla Acevedo editor of DaWire

Karlo Andrei Ibarra, political bananas hanging from tree

Guillerme Rodriguez, Bertopofagia, Bertoia Barbecue chair

El Gordito frozen beef Patties

Chaveli Cifre, wearable collars with drinking jugs

Chaveli Cifre, Boho-Hobo tent

Chemi Rosado, model for a floating skate bowl

Chemi Rosado's sunset sand sofa

Mima and Cesar Reyes

Chaveli Cifre, circle of fire

Marxz Rosado, construction of lamp on palm tree

Cesar Reyes and Radames Juni Figueroa

Piña Dorada (Palm Dior) prizes


Piña Dorada for best young artists, shared in four parts between Guillerme Rodriguez, Chaveli Sifra, Alana Iturralde and Yoyo

Jesus 'Bubu' Negron, standing on the Tropical Carl Andre. Bubu, winner of the Piña Dorada for the best art work of the biennale, and double price for attending all the exhibitions at La Loseta during the year


late arrival, Edgardo Larregui's guava seed cock

another last minute arrival, Marxz Rosado's  palm tree giant lamp


Chaveli Sifre lighting Carolina Caycedo's offering to Yemaja

Carolina Caycedo's offering to Yemaja

our new friend's from La Comai food kiosk

and Green Cubicle exhibition at Roberto Paradise's toilet gallery!

video of the Bienal Tropical by Alexis Ledesma

Gran Bienal Tropical poster by PLB

TROPICO ABIERTO
GRAN BIENAL TROPICAL
Saturday December 10, 2011 12-6 PM
Kiosko La Comai, Carretera 187, Km 13
http://www.infocityturismo.com/lacomay/

A project by Pablo Leon de la Barra for La Loseta
participating artists:
Alana Iturralde, Bea Santiago, Bubu Negron, Carolina Caycedo, Chemi Rosado, Chaveli Cifre, Esteban Gabriel, Guillerme Rodriguez, Jorge Gonzalez, Jose Lerma, Juni Figueroa, Karlo Ibarra, Katalina Iturralde, Marxz Rosado, Michael Linares, Rafael Vargas, Yoyo Rodriguez, and friends...
with guest artists:
Adriana Lara, Beatriz Lopez, Erika Verzutti, Federico Herrero, Naufus Figueroa, Stefan Benchoam, Wilfredo Prieto

“The myth of “Tropicality’ is much more than parrots and banana trees: it is the consciousness of not being conditioned by established structures, hence highly revolutionary in its entirety. Any conformity, be it intellectual, social, or existential, is contrary to its principal idea.”
Hélio Oiticica, Tropicalia, March 4, 1968


The Jury of the Gran Bienal Tropical was conformed by:
Michy Marxuach, co-director and founder, Beta Local
Mima y Cesar Reyes, collectors
Gache Franco, art supporter, mother of art curator Marina Reyes Franco
Carla Acevedo, writer, critic, curator, editor of DaWire
Jose Lerma, artist

The Gran Bienal Tropical jury awarded the following Piña Dorada (Golde Pineapple) awards:

- The 1st price was given unanimously to Jesus 'Bubu' Negron, for his way of questioning puerto rican folklore and reincorporating it to contemporary life.

- The second price for best young artist was shared between:
Alana Iturralde for re-incorporating ideas of participation within the life of the aesthetic object
Guillerme Rodriguez for rethinking and re-using the inherited structures of tropical modernities;
Yoyo Rodriguez for amplifying the sound of the tropics in a poetic way;
and Chaveli Sifra for creating new forms of energy which revitalise and reinvent life in the tropics.

- The price for the best guest artist was given to Erika Verzutti, for rethinking the idea of constructing tropical sculptures

- A life time achievement award was given to La Comay, the place being an art work in itself, but also for the celebration of life, food and friendship that is made possible within the place.

A possible future Biennal Tropical might happen again in La Comay, but might also happen in the jungles of Tabasco or Palenque, near Tikal in Guatemala, somewhere in Costa Rica or Panama, in the island of Solentiname in Nicaragua, in the Peruvian Amazons of Iquitos or the Colombian Amazons of Leticia or the Brasilian Amazons or Manaos or somewhere in between, in Rio de Janeiro or in Salvador de Bahia, or in Cape Verde, Mumbai, Pondichery, Bangkok or Vietnam...

The Bienal Tropical was financed through the economy of friendship
with special thanks to Roberto 'Tito' Paradise for providing accommodation for the bienal.

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