Latinitudes: A Collection of Latin American Modern Architecture

Presented for the first time in the United States, Latinitudes is a photographic survey of modern architecture across twelve Latin American cities: Buenos Aires, Argentina; Bogotá, Colombia; Caracas, Venezuela; Guatemala City, Guatemala; Havana, Cuba; Lima, Peru; Mexico City, Mexico; Montevideo, Uruguay; Quito, Ecuador; San José, Costa Rica; Santiago, Chile; and São Paulo, Brazil. Featuring more than 100 photographs by Brazilian photographer Leonardo Finotti and curated by Brazilian architect Michelle Jean de Castro, the exhibition presents modern architecture across Latin America from a new perspective. In Chicago, a city foundational to modern architectural experimentation, the exhibition invites viewers to consider how modern architecture emerged in parallel across Latin America and throughout the Americas.

Combining the words "latitudes" and "Latino," Latinitudes proposes a horizontal framework connecting cities across shared geographies and histories. Housing, civic, and cultural works by key figures of modernism—Luis Barragán, Lina Bo Bardi, Roberto Burle Marx, Félix Candela, Eladio Dieste, Emilio Duhart, Ricardo Legorreta, Paulo Mendes da Rocha, Oscar Niemeyer, Juan O'Gorman, Mario Pani, Ricardo Porro, Rogelio Salmona, Clorindo Testa, and Carlos Raúl Villanueva, among others—are presented within an interconnected architectural landscape spanning Latin America. Organized from south to north by latitude, the exhibition draws on Uruguayan artist Joaquín Torres-García's América invertida (1943) and his declaration in his 1934 lecture manuscript La Escuela del Sur (The School of the South) that "our north is the south." Where Torres-García inverted the map to challenge axes of power, de Castro and Finotti place each city on the same horizon—without hierarchy. Installed across two floors of the Graham Foundation’s Madlener House, the exhibition uses six standardized image formats scaled to the buildings and aligned along a continuous horizon line at eye level, guiding visitors through twelve cities along a single latitude. The photographs are monochrome prints on aluminum composite panels, referencing gelatin silver photography while using a contemporary process. The photographs are printed in monochrome on aluminum composite panels, referencing gelatin silver printing while reinterpreting modernist aesthetics through contemporary means. The exhibition coincides with the release of A Collection of Latin American Modern Architecture, Volume 2 (Lars Müller Publishers, 2025), the second in a three-volume series spanning exhibitions and publications as a long-term effort to document the region's modern architecture. Finotti received a Graham Foundation grant in 2017 to support the research underlying this volume.

Latinitudes originated as a project of LAMA.SP (Latin American Modern Architecture, São Paulo), an artist-run space founded by Michelle Jean de Castro and Leonardo Finotti. First presented in São Paulo in 2015, the exhibition has since traveled to institutions across Latin America and Europe, including Bogotá, Cuenca, Guadalajara, Mexico City, Montevideo, and Quito.

Presented in partnership with the Chicago Architecture Biennial, Latinitudes was selected by Florencia Rodriguez, Artistic Director of SHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change, continuing an exploration of Latin American architecture in Chicago. The exhibition is organized at the Graham Foundation by Sarah Herda, director, and Ava Barrett, program and communications manager. 

Leonardo Finotti is a visual artist based in São Paulo, Brazil, whose work centers on two complementary themes: modern architecture and anonymous or informal urban spaces. Trained as an architect, he holds a bachelor of arts in architecture from the Universidade Federal de Uberlândia; completed postgraduate studies at the Bauhaus Foundation in Dessau, Germany; and began his career in Portugal before returning to Brazil to embark on a long-term photographic project that revisits and reinterprets the legacy of modern architecture across Latin America and beyond. Alongside collaborations with international architects, institutions, and publications, Finotti has produced a number of independent projects through exhibitions and books, including Pelada (2014); Latinitudes (2015); Rio Enquadrado (2016); A Collection of Latin American Modern Architecture (Lars Müller, 2016); and Sacred Groves & Secret Parks (2019). His work has been widely exhibited and is held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur (Switzerland); Fundação EDP (Portugal); Architekturzentrum Wien (Austria); Bauhaus Dessau Foundation (Germany); and Museu Brasileiro da Escultura e Ecologia (Brazil), among others. He has represented Brazil at two International Architecture Exhibitions, La Biennale di Venezia; the 10th Mercosul Art Biennial, Porto Alegre, Brazil; and was a prizewinner at the 15th Buenos Aires International Biennial of Architecture. 

Michelle Jean de Castro is an architect and curator based in Stockholm. Her work is centered on the concept of haunting—when something previously hidden or overlooked comes into view — tracing the spatial and material dimensions of memory, absence, and displacement. Current projects include Sacred Groves & Secret Parks: Orisha Landscapes in Brazil and West Africa, developed under the guidance of the Hutchins Center, which examines the materiality and spatiality of Afro-religious diasporic practices; What is Not Forest is Ruination; and Ghostly Matters. 

RELATED EVENTS
Opening Reception and Artist Talk
Thursday, April 2, 6–8 p.m.
Talk: Leonardo Finotti, 6 p.m., reception to follow
Free; RSVP required 

RELATED PUBLICATIONS
A Collection of Latin American Modern Architecture, Volume 1
Leonardo Finotti; essay by Barry Bergdoll
Lars Müller Publishers, 2016 

A Collection of Latin American Modern Architecture, Volume 2
Leonardo Finotti; essay by Alexia Tala
Lars Müller Publishers, 2025

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