Argentina '78 World Cup and the Echoes of Mexico '68: Internationalism and Latin American Design. An Intellectual History of Design in the 1960s and 1970s: Politics and Periphery

摘要

The history of peripheral design in the 1960s and 1970s sketches a dynamic flow of designers and representative currents in different geographic scenarios, with interchange between Europe, North America and South America, permitting productive transfers of trans-local knowledge, reflected in the design of the 1968 Mexico Olympics and the 1978 Argentina Soccer World Cup. The two cases provide an opportunity to analyse the importation of ideas and their active appropriation by local peripheral cultures, revealing the circulation of international design trends and the processes of cultural transmission along the periphery. This comparative study reveals the similarities and differences between Mexico and Argentina in relation to how central models were received, particularly with regards to the early acceptance of the Ulm School of Design. The goal is to gain insight into the perspectives of the most important figures in the history of Latin American design. Within this framework, the after-effects of the Mexico Olympics are analysed to supplement other studies that lack a regional perspective. Latin America-viewed as 'peripheral modernity'-was moulded by the tension between centre and periphery. The North-South shift favoured interrelations, enabling design to merge tradition with the contemporary while forging strong ties between nation and politics.