Architecture Classics: Forner Bigatti House Workshop / Alejo Martínez

Written by Belén Maiztegui | Translated by Antonia Piñeiro

The Forner-Bigatti house workshop, designed by the architect Alejo Martinez in 1937, combines the residence and workspaces of the painter Raquel Forner and the sculptor Alfredo Bigatti, two renowned Argentine artists. It is located in the San Telmo neighborhood of Buenos Aires, on a small plot facing what is now called Plaza Coronel Dorrego, at 443 Bethlem Street.

The plot on which the work is located is of a small surface area, measuring only 176 square meters with a depth of 16.58 meters and a frontage of 10.38 meters. Of this total, the area allocated for the house workshop occupies 140 square meters, and the remaining 36 meters were designated for the design of a small garden.

At the time when this house workshop was designed, buildings characterized by combining artists' residences with their respective studios and workspaces were quite common. During those same years in Buenos Aires, the Suipacha and Paraguay ateliers were conceived and designed by Antonio Bonet, Vera Barros, and López Chas. Setting itself apart from other cases, the Forner-Bigatti house has the particularity of combining independent studios belonging to two artists specializing in different fields (a painter and a sculptor). Instead of constituting a single undifferentiated spatial unit where the living area and workspaces blend without distinctions, the program was addressed through a compact floor plan in which private living spaces are radically differentiated from those dedicated to artistic activities.

The need to address a program consisting of two workshops and a house on a small plot resulted in a zoned organization, with two floors having a relatively analogous distribution. On both levels, the more public areas are located towards the front: the two workshops, open towards the square and oriented to the south, capturing optimal light for artistic activities. Towards the rear on the ground floor, the private areas of the gallery, services, and the garden are situated. Following the same logic on the upper floor, the bedroom and a small terrace are accommodated.

As the workshops are arranged one above the other along the vertical axis, it was decided to create a void of 3.90 by 4.50 meters to link them. This double height visually and acoustically connects the two spaces, allowing both artists to communicate with each other without losing the independence of their workspaces. Additionally, this large void responds to functional considerations related to the activity carried out by Alfredo Bigatti, providing him with the necessary height to create large sculptures. In this project, in addition to the connecting double height, various theoretical postulates characteristic of the period can be observed, such as the compactness of the floors, the absence of areas without a specific function, the lack of ornamental elements, the purity of the junctions, the valorization of planes as expressive elements, the asymmetry of floors and facades, spatial continuity, cubist composition, and the abstraction of the entire ensemble.

Currently, the House Workshop serves as the headquarters of the Forner-Bigatti Foundation. This non-profit institution aims to 'promote, stimulate, collaborate, intervene in all kinds of initiatives of an educational, intellectual, artistic, scientific, and philanthropic nature and encourage studies aimed at providing a better understanding of the work of Raquel Forner and Alfredo Bigatti, as well as national visual arts.' The foundation organizes various public activities, including courses, conferences, guided tours, seminars, and exhibitions. Additionally, it houses a specialized library and a documentation center, accessible to those interested in researching Argentine art.

The mission of the Board of Directors of the foundation is to fulfill the mandates of Raquel Forner, who, with great concern regarding the fate of her and her husband's works after her death, chose to create the Foundation in 1982. The vision was to transform the house where she lived with her husband into a museum house to continue housing the works of both artists.

To learn more about the house, the artists, and the activities organized by the foundation, visit their website through the following link.

Bibliography:

Website of the Forner-Bigatti Foundation consulted on November 1, 2019.
Giménez, Carlos Gustavo, and Navarro, Ángel Miguel: "La casa taller Forner Bigatti" (The Forner-Bigatti House Workshop), Summa+, No. 84, December 2006, Buenos Aires, pp. 78-85.
Liernur, Jorge Francisco: "Arquitectura en la Argentina del siglo XX, La construcción de la modernidad" (Architecture in 20th-century Argentina, The Construction of Modernity), Fondo Nacional de las Artes, 2001, Buenos Aires.