Argentina ‘78 World Cup and doi:10.

1093/jdh/ept041
Journal of Design History

the Echoes of Mexico ‘68: Vol. 27 No. 1

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Internationalism and Latin
American Design. An Intellectual
History of Design in the 1960s and
1970s: Politics and Periphery

Marta Almeida
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.

Keywords: Argentina—design history—internationalism—Latin American design—Mexico—

national identity

During the 1960s and 1970s the international design scene formed a dynamic net-
work between the central countries of Europe and North America, and Latin America,
a region with a growing movement of designers who fostered transcultural currents
to articulate their experiences, trends, concepts and ideas. There had been a similar
exchange between designers of different regions during the Second World War, when
a number of Europeans, all formerly in the Bauhaus movement, came to the United
States of America.1 These geographic exchanges created a diaspora of designers who
travelled from the centre to the periphery and vice versa.2 This interchange led to pro-
ductive transfers and transcultural experiences which were reflected in the design of
the 1968 Olympics and the 1978 Soccer World Cup.
© The Author [2013]. Published by
Two of these interchanges proved crucial for Latin American design. The first is the Oxford University Press on behalf
of The Design History Society. All
arrival of North American designers in Mexico in the 1960s, when Pedro Ramírez rights reserved.
Vázquez (chairman of the Olympic Committee) put together a design team to develop Advance Access publication
the visual identity of Mexico ‘68. The second is the reception of the Hochschule für 23 December 2013

58
 Gestaltung, the Ulm School of Design (1953–1968), in the Río de la Plata region in
the 1970s.3 The histories of émigré Tomás Maldonado (an Argentine artist who later

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worked in the field of design) and of Gui Bonsiepe (a German designer who moved to
Latin America after the Ulm School closed its doors) are of a reciprocal South-North,
North-South movement. Both designers created a fluid exchange between Argentina
and German design, reflected in the identity of the 1978 World Cup, which reintro-
duced principles outlined for the 1972 Olympics design. This event, in turn, was influ-
enced by another meeting, that of Katsumi Masaru and Otl Aicher, both of whom were
interested in Otto Neurath’s ideas (included in the pictogram design of the Tokyo ‘64
and Munich ‘72 Olympics). Katsumi and Aicher had been in contact since the 1960
World Design Conference in Tokyo.

The design of the Mexican Olympics and of the Argentine World Cup were the result
of exchanges involving Mexico, the USA, Germany and Argentina (and in this analysis,
Japan as well). Both events reveal aspects of Latin America’s cultural history: the rela-
tionship between European and peripheral cultures, the reception and circulation of
ideas and the reappropriation of ideas produced within other contexts, such as Europe
and North America.4 The design of the Olympics and World Cup were among the first
professional design jobs done in Latin America and served to strengthen a budding
field. In 1969, Mexico opened the first institute devoted to the teaching of design,
which had become a field of study in different cities in Argentina back in 1958. The
latter was partly promoted by a process begun in the late 1940s, when the relationship
between Tomás Maldonado and Max Bill began fostering an exchange with Europe
and modern design.5

From the standpoint of the sociology of culture, it is important to note how the periph-
eral nature of Latin America necessitated foreign endorsement. Latin American design-
ers often gained initial prestige in Europe or the USA before returning, and the influx
of international design schools in the region found fertile ground for disseminating
concepts.6 This asymmetry led to a state of cultural dependence that often reduced
the local industry to the status of mere recipient. This peripheral, dependent position
encouraged the active reception of foreign ideas and meant that peripheral production
could not be considered completely autonomous; comparison with the cultural poles
was one of its constituent features. In fact, the tension between centre and periphery
and the North-South shift favoured the phenomenon of a design more dependent on
major metropolises, since this is where the rules for acceptance and success are ulti-
mately decided.7

Around that time, another sports event was held in Mexico, the 1970 World Cup. Its
design was an offshoot of the Olympics and lacked the strong international flair of
Mexico ‘68 and Argentina ‘78. A comparative study of the latter two—both of which
strived to conform to both national and foreign trends—reveals the continuities and
ruptures of certain aspects of international design that took root on the continent dur-
ing the second half of the twentieth century.8

The ‘68 Olympics: periphery, foreign design and state

propaganda
Held in October 1968, the Mexico Olympics were the first Olympic Games hosted in
Latin America; they had a profound impact on Mexican culture beyond sports and
established the games as a Latin American cultural event.9 After the 1970 World Soccer
Championship (which had been held before in Latin America) took place in Mexico, a

Marta Almeida
59
third sporting event, the 1978 World Soccer Championship, was held in Latin America,
ten years after the Mexico Olympics. Since the World Soccer Championships emerged

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as a by-product of the 1928 Olympics, it is possible to see the links between the two
events.10 In addition to the logistics, the Argentine World Cup had other things in
common with the Mexican Olympics. First, international collaborators were involved
in designing both events, giving rise to an exchange between what was ‘foreign’ and
‘local’. Throughout the twentieth century, this type of interchange in Latin America
fluctuated between ‘nationalistic’ trends—which professed to resolve the malaise of
the peripheral cultures by denying anything foreign—and those that were ‘cosmo-
politan’, i.e. those which aspired to eliminate the problem by affirming the universality
of culture.11 The international style (modernism and functionalism, with its purported
universality) favoured the emergence of a type of design which tended (to varying
degrees) towards internationalism.

Secondly, both the 1968 Olympics and the 1978 World Cup took place within difficult
political contexts: the Tlatelolco Massacre (1968) and the last Argentine military dicta-
torship (1976–1983). The 1960s and 1970s were marked by strong political instabil-
ity and a complex regional scenario.12 While Munich ‘72—the other event examined
here—also took place within a context of violence, the situation in the regions dif-
fered significantly: Germany was the victim of international terrorism, while Mexico
and Argentina faced military groups that exercised state terrorism from within, against
their own civilian populations.

Social upheaval was a sign of the times in 1968. Che Guevara, an iconic figure of Latin
American politics and international youth movements, had been killed in 1967, and
the cries of the Mexican leftists and student factions echoed the Cuban revolution. The
French May protests had taken place only months before the Tlatelolco Massacre, a few
days prior to the opening ceremony of the 1968 Mexico Olympics. The students aspired
to benefit from the international attention focused on Mexico thanks to the Olympic
Games, while the Mexican government, determined to stop the protests, ordered the
army occupation of the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico). This inter-
vention ended with the death of over 300 students in Tlatelolco Square.13 Apart from
endangering the Olympics, which were almost cancelled, the government of Mexico,
under President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz (1964–1970), faced a wave of international repu-
diation in which Mexico’s viability as a safe Olympic venue was questioned. In 1964
Mexico had already been the target of international criticism as the first Latin American
country to be chosen as an Olympic venue. According to critics from the developed
countries, Mexico was a so-called ‘third world’ country and not worthy of hosting the
games due to a lack of infrastructure and geographical drawbacks.14

Mexico experienced progressive modernisation throughout the 1960s, particularly in

architecture and city planning (though less so in politics).15 The Alliance for Progress
(1961–1970), a US Latin American assistance program, inaugurated a period of indus-
trialisation that coincided with the expansion of modern architecture, which aimed to
construct the ‘social utopias’ fostered by modernism. The boom of the modern move-
ment in countries of the periphery led the ‘universality’ of the modern style to become
an alternative to ‘provincialism’.16 As part of this process of cultural modernisation, the
Olympic design was conceived by the Mexican state as an opportunity to develop a
modern national identity, while showing the world a democratic image that contrasted
with its government’s authoritarian practices.17 Nevertheless, as Castañeda explains,
the notion of an official image of Mexico as a ‘modern and international’ country, was
not conceived for the 1968 Games. Instead, it was a much older idea, one considered
for the Mexican Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair, the first project undertaken

Argentina ‘78 World Cup and the Echoes of Mexico ‘68

60
 by architect Ramírez Vázquez.18 Since the late 1950s, then, Mexican modernity has
been conceived of as an articulation of old colonial traditions with new international

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architecture.19

The design of Mexico ‘68 began in 1966, when Ramírez Vázquez presided over the
Mexican Olympic Committee (MOC).20 In Mexico, graphic design was not taught until
1969 and the country did not have experts with enough experience to design such a
monumental event. Ramírez Vázquez thus opted to invite foreign designers to Mexico
to work on the Olympics visuals; he believed that a modern visual image would help
reduce the international criticism of Mexico.21 In the meantime, Europe and North
America were enjoying the highly productive period for design that had begun in
the post-war years. These times were marked by the international typographic style
promoted at Basel and Zurich and its application in the United States; the New York
School, the new style of North American advertising and typographic expressionism;
and the heyday of corporate identity and visual systems (the Italian company Olivetti
and the US IBM were iconic cases). Meanwhile, Latin America had witnessed the arrival
of the German gute form trend and the Gestalt with its psychology of perception,
along with the HfG Ulm; these were both especially well-received in Argentina, Brazil
and Mexico.22 All these trends had a significant effect on design in the 1960s and
1970s, the years when the Mexican Olympics and the Argentine World Cup took place.

The lack of local designers experienced in major events, plus the evident need of the
MOC to present a ‘modern’ image of Mexico, necessitated the import of design. The
international team was headed by Eduardo Terrazas (the Mexican architect responsible
for the Urban Design Program) and Beatrice Trueblood (a US designer, director of the
Committee’s Publications Department).23 Between 1966 and 1969, both were respon-
sible for the Mexico ‘68 Image Program and a team of 350 people that included Peter
Murdoch (a British industrial designer), Bob Pellegrini and Michael Gross (New York
editorial designers), a group of young designers and photographers from the Pratt
Institute, and architect Manuel Villazón, one of the few Mexican designers at that
time. Two other team members were Mathias Goeritz (a German architect) and Lance
Wyman (a US designer); the latter created the type and design of the Olympic logotype
under the supervision of Terrazas and Ramírez Vázquez.24

The design merged two aspects of Mexico: that of a country rooted in its Hispanic past
and that of a modern nation-state. Thus, the identity of Mexico ‘68 fluctuated between
two visual traditions, one indigenous (Huichol) and the other modern (Op Art).25 The
Olympic design achieved a mirror effect, reflecting the country’s hybrid origin (and
its Latin American identity) within the dynamics of miscegenation, as part of the
mass communication campaign launched by the government.26 The Olympic design
also absorbed features of international movements, as foreign and Mexican profes-
sionals met one another, fostering an interchange of local and global perspectives.
Nonetheless, at the time, Op Art was strongly questioned by Latin Americanists for
ideological reasons. Pop and kinetic art were widespread in Venezuela, Argentina and
Brazil, and they led to criticism of Latin American culture being subordinated to that of
the central countries; foreign representations were being adopted as the region’s own,
to the detriment of an artistic language reflecting a continental and national identity.

The design of Mexico ‘68 benefited from the interactions between the USA, Germany
and Mexico, which also merged that of ‘negotiation’ (and not antagonism) to project
itself to the international community as an amalgam of indigenous or hybrid cultures
and modern Western culture. Far from displaying a ‘passive reception’, Mexico ‘68
design reveals an active transition between two cultures, both of which make specific

Marta Almeida
61
contributions and ultimately co-operate to achieve a new representation.27 This coexist- Fig 1. The Mexico ‘68 logo used
ence of local and international ideas was partially owed to Mexico’s state propaganda, a play on the lines of traditional

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Huichol art and enhanced it
which aimed to use the country’s folkloric past and its modern vision as a promotional
with optical linear elements.
approach.28 This cultural state program favoured the preservation of the ‘Mexican com- Source: Mexico 68, vol. 2, The
ponent’ (an either folkloric component or one from its ancient past, as explained by Organization, Official Report of
Zolov and Castañeda) while in Argentina, there was greater interest in making its sport- the Organising Committee of the
ing event international.29 The meeting of two traditions represented a political stance in Games of the XIXth Olympiad,
Mexico City, 1969, p. 306
favour of recovering popular culture (often subordinated in Latin American countries to
the intellectual culture that originated in the central countries),
through the ‘synthesis’ of local and global elements [1].

At the regional level, the Olympic design consolidated a still incipi-

ent and decidedly internationalist discipline in Mexico. Design was
positioned to receive high visibility during the games themselves.
The outdoor graphics of the Olympic stadium designed by Terrazas
and Murdoch’s information booths were characteristic of the overall
design and were totally new to the Mexican audience. The Olympics
had such an impact that a year later, a graphic design degree pro-
gram was started at the UIA (Universidad Iberoamericana).30 The
international approach was taught in all of the first design study
programmes, which included foreign perspectives, such as those
of the designers who had visited the HfG Ulm and who partici-
pated actively in the new schools starting in 1969.31 Students
began receiving training in abstraction with a Gestalt approach,
and the majority of educational institutions adopted the exercises
from Germany in subsequent years. Argentina was no exception to
the assimilation of German design and there are many similarities
in terms of the type of ideas that circulated within the design milieu
of both countries during the late 1960s.

The 1978 World Cup and the meeting with

German design
The eleventh World Cup was held in 1978 and it enabled the
last Argentine dictatorship to wage a defensive and self-pro-
claiming media campaign. While the event served the purposes
of the military government, it was also a coincidence since the
venue had been chosen twelve years earlier. The World Cup
became an even more massive event under a military govern-
ment and clearly one of the most important in the history of
Argentina. Besides the natural effervescence surrounding
a sporting event of this magnitude, soccer is very popular in
Argentina; both factors were responsible for the immediate
and enthusiastic support of the civil population.32 Nonetheless,
the interest for history in the dimensions and the complexity of
the event’s graphic design was overshadowed by the dictator-
ship. The design of the World Cup has always been attributed
to the military government in spite of the fact that most of
the main pieces were conceived before the coup. In Argentina,
this sporting event remains an object of study that provokes
a latent sense of discomfort, one which is in turn valuable for

Argentina ‘78 World Cup and the Echoes of Mexico ‘68

62
 the analysis and which draws attention to its importance in the history of Argentine
design.33

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At the beginning of the dictatorship, indecision marked the Argentina ‘78 graphic
design; unlike Mexico ‘68, there had been no initial plan for the event’s graphics. The
MOC had focused on the cultural importance of the event both in the country and
abroad, with the intention of strengthening the ‘modern image’ of Mexico. Hence,
from its commencement, an international team was called upon to forge an identity
that would reflect current design from a global perspective. In Argentina, the design
of the World Cup was a choppy process involving several stages. It began in 1973
when the first emblem for 1978 was designed and presented at the 1974 German
World Cup; until 1978, design progressed under both democratic and totalitarian
governments. Military participation began in 1976, with the creation of a regulatory
board to oversee event logistics, the EAM (World Autarkic Board), under Admiral Carlos
Lacoste.34 In view of its erratic development, the graphic design was not supervised by
a single designer or even a single team of professional designers. Instead, professionals
from all different backgrounds were involved. For this reason, it is much less organic
than a comprehensive design system such as that of Mexico.35

Although the Mexico ‘68 Olympics and Mexico ‘70 World Soccer Championship
achieved visibility in the region, the design of Argentina ‘78 had little in common with
the Mexican events. The 1970 emblem included tacit though not explicit references to
Mexico, except for the typography which had been linked to the visual Olympic program
since 1968. Terrazas and Wyman, who participated in the design of Mexico ‘68, were
also responsible for Mexico ‘70. They opted for the same typography, thus systematis-
ing the visual identities of the two events. The 1978 World Cup emblem was created by
Juan Riera, a young artist and future designer interested in the HfG Ulm and Japanese
design.36 Some of the formal aspects of the Argentine symbol evoked that of the 1970
Mexico World Cup, particularly the dynamism of the Gestalt resolution of the image:
the positive and negative balloon and the balance between figure and background [2].
Both the 1970 and 1978 proposals reintroduced Gestalt psychology, which was criti-
cally important at the HfG Ulm.37 When designing the logotype, Riera had already seen
Aicher’s 1972 emblem (‘wreath of rays’) and that of the 1974 German World Cup [3].38

Less focused on the periphery and more open to European ideas, the Argentine World
Cup did have points of contact with the 1972 Olympics.39 Starting in 1967, Otl Aicher,

Fig 2. Left: The 1970 FIFA

World Cup Mexico™ logo,
co-designed by Eduardo
Terrazas and Lance Wyman.
Right: The 1978 FIFA World
Cup Argentina™ logo by Juan
Riera, published in Summa, no.
117, October 1977, p. 99. This
composite image was specially
prepared by the author using
diverse images and sources.
Reproduced with permission
from Eduardo Terrazas and FIFA

Marta Almeida
63
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Fig 3. Left: The logo of the
Games of the XXth Olympiad
Munich 1972, Germany,
designed by Otl Aicher, © IOC.
Reproduced with permission
from the International Olympic
Committee. Right: The logo
of the 1974 FIFA World Cup
Germany™. This composite
image was specially prepared by
the author using diverse images
and sources. Reproduced with
permission from FIFA

the head of the design team, collaborated with Rolf Muller and Ian McLaren on the
overall design of the Olympics. He also had extensive experience in corporate design,
and had earned a great reputation for his work for Braun and Lufthansa and as director
of the HfG Ulm.40 As for the relations between Germany and Argentina in the field of
design, they began two decades before the World Cup. In Argentina during the 1940s,
an artistic avant-garde movement called concrete-invention art emerged. Interested
in European futurism and concretism, this group of artists formed part of the Buenos
Aires cultural elite with an ideology akin to progressive utopianism and scientificism
along with a strong critique of the fine arts. Tomás Maldonado was one of the key
figures in this movement.41

The impact of concrete art on Argentine design was studied extensively by Devalle,
who analysed the links between concretism and modern architecture, and the influ-
ence of Max Bill who had already won international renown. Toward the end of the
1940s, Buenos Aires artistic circles opened themselves up to the European world and
witnessed the convergence between art and architecture. Maldonado explored the
Bauhaus approaches, particularly those of László Moholy-Nagy and Mies van de Rohe;
Maldonado’s influence on Argentine art and architecture helped disseminate their
work at a national level. In 1948 Maldonado made his first trip to Europe and met
with Bill. Upon his return, he published what is considered the first paper on Argentine
industrial design, entitled ‘Design and Social Life’.42 Subsequently, he founded the
first Argentine design magazine, Nueva Visión (New Vision), published from 1951 to
1957.43 Meanwhile, Bill opened the Ulm School of Design in Germany to reintroduce
the Bauhaus tenets in 1953 and a year later, he called on Maldonado to join his teach-
ing staff.44

Maldonado’s participation at the school gave rise to a fruitful exchange between

Germany and Latin America and brought together Maldonado and Gui Bonsiepe,
another key figure of Argentine design and one of the designers of the 1978 World
Cup. Bonsiepe entered HfG Ulm as a student and went on to become a professor
and also a disciple of Aicher and Maldonado. Bonsiepe’s importance in Argentina
helped to disseminate the HfG’s German theory, which became widely known among
Argentina’s design community. Another aspect that fostered the HfG Ulm principles
was Maldonado’s renown in Germany.45 From a peripheral standpoint, his reputa-
tion encouraged the mass acceptance of the German-European trend in modern

Argentina ‘78 World Cup and the Echoes of Mexico ‘68

64
 Argentine design. During the last years of the school, Maldonado also worked for
Olivetti in collaboration with Bonsiepe. In the late 1960s they embarked on differ-

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ent paths; Maldonado settled permanently in Italy, and Bonsiepe travelled to Latin
America where he became one of the main promoters of the HfG Ulm concepts.46

The common explanation as to why the school’s doctrines were well received in Argentina
was related to the actual conception of the ‘Ulm model’, a methodology in which design
offered a solution for the (not necessarily continuous) development of the peripheral
countries. Both Bonsiepe and Maldonado viewed design as a tool for industrialisation
and as a response to the problems of modern central societies; design could also be
implemented in other contexts to promote the unfinished development of, for example,
countries along the periphery.47 This projection of the Ulm model was pivotal to the vision
of both authors; what is more, Bonsiepe was one of the theorists most seriously dedi-
cated to the actual possibilities of design on the periphery, as can been seen in his many
books and in his activities in Chile under the Popular Union (UP), the socialist government
of Salvador Allende (1970–1973).48 Apart from the influence of Bonsiepe, the wide-
spread acceptance of the Ulm School in Latin America was also furthered by the diaspora
of Latin American designers who visited the school and later returned to spread its ideas.

While the Ulm model provided solutions to the problems of the periphery, its arrival
and rapid assimilation were never questioned. In fact, the region’s first design programs
incorporated the Ulm guidelines (almost) in toto.49 Yet the German Ulm model was the
result of political, economic and social circumstances specific to post-war Europe and its
ambitions were associated with developmentalism, with its ‘ethnocentric and techno-
cratic’ conception.50 Here the peripheral nature of Argentine culture can be considered
an explanation (albeit partial) as to why the 1978 World Cup was influenced more
strongly by Munich ‘72 than by Mexico ‘68 and why ultimately, the Argentine design
was more cosmopolitan than that of Mexico. This evokes a process studied in depth
by Viñas in the early days of the Argentine literature, one deliberately influenced by
strabismus: ‘where one eye looks towards the homeland and the other towards Europe,
a conservative and elitist outlook’.51 This Argentine cultural bias—necessarily cosmo-
politan—is noticeable both in the Argentina of the 1940s (with the advent of the first
expressions of design) and of the 1970s (when the World Cup was designed).

Another element in the 1978 Argentine graphic design was one of its most popular
components: Mundialito, its mascot. The history of sports mascots began in England
in 1966, when the FIFA decided to invent an emblem to identify the host countries of
the world soccer championships. The first was a lion baptised Willie (London ‘66), fol-
lowed by Juanito (Mexico ‘70) and then Waldi (Munich ‘72), the first Olympic mascot.
The mascot became the visible face of the competition in the case of both Olympic and
world soccer events. As in the other cases, Mundialito (a gaucho boy), had to condense
the identity of the country in a unique image for international circulation. The gaucho
has strong historical connotations in Argentina and cannot be summarised in just a
few lines. However, it is important to note that gauchos participated in the nineteenth-
century battles for independence and ever since they have been lauded by all political
ideologies, both left and right-wing. During the 1970s, leftists considered the gau-
cho to be ‘the man who fought against Spanish domination’, or any other oppressor.
Meanwhile, the right wing had adopted the gaucho as the ‘embodiment of homeland’,
a man associated with rural life and national tradition.52

This notion of rural life was also present in the cultural imagery of Mexico ‘68.
As Castañeda explains, while the Olympic identity was being developed, Ramírez

Marta Almeida
65
Vázquez affirmed that Mexico should offer an image ‘completely
different’ from that which it had found so difficult to overcome:

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‘a figure covered by a poncho and a sombrero sleeping soundly
beneath the shadow of a tree’.53 In the end, Mexico ‘68 did not
need to choose a mascot, and Munich ‘72 was the first of the
Olympic series to have a mascot. In both Mexico and Argentina,
the idea of a nation associated with the countryside and folklore
was the order of the day. In the case of Mexico, the idea took
shape with the soccer championship two years after the Olympics,
which called for a sports mascot. Like Mundialito, Juanito had a
traditional folkloric and peasant style, representing a return to tra-
dition through the child as a rhetorical figure which operated both
metonymically and as a cultural stereotype.

In 1972 the AFA (Argentine Football Association) called for design

proposals for the 1978 World Cup mascot. The winner was a geo-
metric gaucho designed by Roberto Seijo. Like Waldi, a static pro-
filed silhouette, this first Mundialito sketch was rational, geometric
and two-dimensional [4]. In the end, this version of the young
gaucho never circulated publicly and was replaced with a clearly
defined, more popular and anthropomorphic child. The second ver-
sion of Mundialito began to circulate in 1977, and its design was
closer to that of the first two mascots (Willie and Juanito) [5].54
The first Mundialito, copied from Waldi, was not easy to interpret;
in fact, it was unclear whether it represented a child. The second Fig 4. The first Argentine
mascot, however, revived a nationalistic feel and became more lifelike and child- mascot, designed by Roberto
like, a ‘depoliticised figure’: a child is someone who does not yet have an ideology. Seijo, winner of the competition
held by AFA. Source: Booklet
In the socio-historical context of the Argentine World Cup, concepts such as the
of Competition for the Mascot,
quality of ‘being Argentine’ and ‘childhood’ were functional within the framework AFA Organising Committee of
of a nationalist and conservative fascist ideology, adding value to ethnicity (with an the 1978 World Championship,
Buenos Aires, 1972

Fig 5. Left: The 1978 FIFA

World Cup™ Official Mascot.
Reproduced with permission
from FIFA. Right: its redrawn
version by Néstor Córdoba. Both
published in Summa, no. 117,
October 1977, pp. 99–100. This
composite image was specially
prepared by the author using
diverse images and sources

Argentina ‘78 World Cup and the Echoes of Mexico ‘68

66
 emphasis on folklore). With a subtle twist, it also used childhood to add value to
‘tradition’, understood as the ‘conservative and reactionary’ nucleus of totalitarian

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ideology.

MOC and EAM were two government entities responding to different political cir-
cumstances; the former answered to a democratic government and the latter to a
dictatorship. In both Mexico and Argentina, the government strategy highlighted
folklore and made use of international style guidelines. However, while Mexico ‘68
consolidated its propaganda by means of a modern image with strategic design,
the 1978 World Cup did not utilise it as part of its campaign of state promotion.
While the World Cup was used as an instrument to strengthen the political power
of the dictators, the design teams had already begun its work when the military
Fig 6. Left: Pictograms of
took power. For this reason, while the visual program in Mexico was conceived and
the Games of the XVIIIth
Olympiad Tokyo 1964, monitored from start to finish, the visual communication was harder for the dictator-
designed by Yamashita ship to control, since it was already underway when they seized power. As Zolov has
Yoshiro under the direction explained, Mexico ‘68 received severe international criticism in which the country
of Katsumi Masaru, © IOC. was challenged as a ‘third world’ venue.55 Argentina was also the object of criticism
Reproduced with permission
but, unlike Mexico, the condemnation came from left-wing European human rights
from the International Olympic
Committee. Right: Muncih ‘72 organisations, especially in France and Holland, that made reference not to the coun-
pictograms, designed by Otl try’s third world status but to the crimes perpetrated by state terrorism.56
Aicher, published in H. Kunze
(ed.), Die Spiele: Official Report
of the Organising Committee
for the Games of the XXth
Imported design and the stagnation of a local model
Olympiad Munich 1972, vol.
1, The Organization, Munich,
After the closure of the HfG Ulm, Gui Bonsiepe moved to Chile to work with the
1972, p. 99 UP Socialist government. In 1973, after the Chilean military coup, he travelled to

Marta Almeida
67
Argentina and in 1975, under the democratic govern-
ment of Isabel Perón, began to collaborate on a part of

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the design of the Argentine World Cup with the architect
Carlos Méndez Mosquera (another key figure of Argentine
design). Bonsiepe and Méndez Mosquera headed the team
in charge of the signage and equipment for the World Cup
stadiums. As Méndez Mosquera pointed out, ‘Ulm was with
us and many of the ideograms reflect the German signage
model’.57 The aim of Argentina’s team was not to design a
new system of icons but to adapt the Munich pictograms to
the local manufacturing facilities, which were more modest
than those in Germany at the time. Yet Aicher’s Olympic
design had not been entirely new either; it had already
been subject to an exchange that involved reworking the
Japanese pictographic ‘culture’.58 According to Aicher,
Munich ‘72 needed to capitalise on the efficacy of the
Tokyo ‘64 pictograms [6].59

The story of the 1972 Olympic pictograms began with

Katsumi Masaru (head of the Tokyo ‘64 Olympic design)
and Otl Aicher’s interest in Otto Neurath and his ISOTYPE
(International System of Typographic Picture Education).
Katsumi was interested in Western design, particularly
German contributions.60 In 1954 he met Gropius during
his visit to the Kuwasawa Design School, where Katsumi
was a professor, and in 1960 he joined Aicher and other
international designers at the World Design Conference
held in Tokyo. Japan had also adopted the German design
approach after an exchange with Germany. Japan’s experi-
ence was different from that of Latin America, since its
‘import/export’ model was more symmetrical, precisely
due to the boom of Japanese architecture and design in
the central countries in the 1950s.61 Latin America was
permeated by cosmopolitanism, a ground-level situa-
tion that stressed ‘importation’ over the ‘exportation’ of
knowledge.62
Fig 7. Comparison of the
Katsumi’s contribution was crucial to the Munich ‘72 wayfinding system, which Munich ‘72 (left) and Argentina
became a point of reference at subsequent events. However, the design for the ‘78 (right) pictograms. The
Argentine signage system was
Canadian Expo ‘67 also attracted Aicher’s attention.63 The integration of both
designed by Estudio Méndez
designs involved substantial reworking in formal terms and—unlike in Argentina, Mosquera/Bonsiepe; extracts
which used a copy—a new system of pictograms was generated. The asymmetry published in Summa, no. 117,
between centre and periphery, between the (European) ‘model’ and the local ‘copy’, October 1977, p. 113. This
was more evident in Argentina than in Japan and Germany. In the Argentine case, composite image was specially
prepared by the author using
instead of reworking the signs, Aicher’s system was transferred as an ‘extrapolation’:
diverse images and sources
the pictograms were the same but the material nature of the signs changed based
on what was available on the local market at that time [7]. As explained by Méndez
Mosquera, it was ‘a typical Ulm idea’ in which perforated metal sheet was used as
backing for the signs, where the ideograms were delineated with plastic buttons
[8]. Although the Aicher model formed the basis for the Argentine design, the latter
presented certain specific problems related to differences in production and budget
availabilities:

Argentina ‘78 World Cup and the Echoes of Mexico ‘68

68
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Fig 8. The ideograms based
on Aicher’s concept were
drawn with plastic buttons on
perforated metal sheet (this
example is still in use in one of
the main Argentine World Cup
stadiums). Photograph by the
author, 2006

We used local resources and were on a relatively tight budget. This led us to use
sheet metal (not aluminium, for instance), folded, perforated and painted, with
minimum welding and easy to assemble. We had to adjust to the original budget
which was nothing compared to what the Germans had for Munich ‘72. They
were rich, we were poor [. . .]64

Together with signage, seating was another important feature of the 1978 World Cup
design. The benches, also created by the Bonsiepe team, were injected plastic ergonomic
seats that took into account the available materials and an economy of production con-
sistent with local industry factors. A few months before the championship, the following
advertisement appeared in Summa magazine on the World Cup benches [9]:65

641,533 persons will think they are in Munich [. . .] Thanks to the technological
progress achieved by an Argentine business group, the public attending the sta-
diums [. . .] will have seating similar to that of the great Munich stadium in West
Germany. [. . .] A further demonstration of the efficiency and constant search for
progress of our companies.66

From this standpoint, technological progress, efficiency and development of the local
industry could only be achieved using a foreign (German) standard. The mirror effect
between Argentina and Europe was a constant among the mechanisms of subordina-
tion (observable in other cultural fields) where an image reflected from Europe was
adopted as Argentina’s own.67 Ultimately, the question was whether design could be

Marta Almeida
69
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Fig 9. Advertisement
promoting the manufacture of
the 1978 World Cup benches by
the company PAM, published in
Summa, no. 117, October 1977,
p. 21

a factor for social change and stimulate industrial development in a new society. The
goal, as established by the Ulm School, was for design to overcome the challenges
imposed by the post-Second World War years; however, this was only feasible in heavily
industrialised countries.68 Moreover, in addition to the lack of local industrialisation—
the result of Argentina’s complex political and economic situation of Argentina around
1970—there was the question of Maldonado, an influential figure in Latin American
design who was a theoretician acclaimed in Europe because of his involvement with
Ulm and often viewed as a ‘national hero’ in the history of Argentine design.69

The dependent relationship that Argentine design had formed with Germany thus
led to a blatant ‘subordination’ to the central countries instead of a propitious field
for autochthonous design, a chance to move past the fascination which German

Argentina ‘78 World Cup and the Echoes of Mexico ‘68

70
 design had aroused in Argentina and other Latin American countries. Whereas the
Ulm model sidestepped the hurdle of its universalist pretensions claiming that its

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model was founded on a ‘methodology’ based on industry and scientific reason, it
was impossible to overlook the fact that this model emerged in the central countries
as part of a specific cultural history and reality.70 In addition, as a result of the military
government’s economic policy, local industry had been left totally unprotected and
importation was rampant; this period is known as the ‘de-industrialisation of the
1970s’. Argentine industrialists were reduced to merely ‘importers’ and ceased to
produce in order to simply sell what they brought from abroad or what was produced
in the country under foreign license. The lack of vigorous industrialisation in Latin
America during and after the 1970s made design along the periphery increasingly
challenging.

The history of peripheral design in the 1960s and 1970s sketches a dynamic flow of
designers and representative currents, with interchange between Europe, North America
and South America. As part of these dynamics, the multinational was imposed onto the
local and design, an offshoot of the modern movement, was dominated by internation-
alism, making uniformity and standardisation two compulsory premises. In Argentina
‘78, design took on a form of ‘cultural vulnerability’ in which foreign proposals were
accepted without question. In the Argentine case, ‘extrapolation’ prevailed over the
German concept of design. The political and economic realities of the years of the dic-
tatorship also encumbered the development of a local design model. In Argentina, the
state communication strategy was erratic and fragmented and as a result, the soccer
championship design lacked a specific focus. In Mexico, state propaganda protected tra-
dition and the indigenous component, using a modern image as a promotional theme
in which design played a central role.71 Unlike the Argentine approach, the Mexican
strategy permitted greater integration of the local ideas. The comparison of Mexico
and Argentina highlights the immanent characteristics of Latin American culture, where
residual elements coexist with proposals for renovation, together with a process of
importing practices and knowledge.

Marta Almeida
School of Architecture, Design and Urban Planning, University of Buenos Aires
E-mail: [email protected]

Marta Almeida is a Lecturer in History at the Institute of Higher Social Studies (IDAES,
National University of San Martin). She received her Master’s degree in Communication
Design from the School of Architecture, Design and Urban Planning (University of
Buenos Aires). Her research is on Argentine design and its connections with politics
and society in the 1970s. She worked as editor of TipoGrafica magazine from 2000
to 2007. She currently works as a co-editor of IF Magazine, published by the City of
Buenos Aires Metropolitan Design Centre (CMD), and as a journalist for the German
design magazine Novum.

If you have any comments to make in relation to this article, please go to the journal website on
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responses to the editorial board and other readers.

Acknowledgements: I wish to express my appreciation for the valuable anonymous revisions made by
the Journal of Design History that have strengthened the basic tenets of my study. I would also like to
offer my special thanks to Jilly Traganou for her support and generosity, and to my doctoral advisors
Mirta Varela, Laura Vazquez, María Eugenia Giorgi and Marcela Gené.

Marta Almeida
71
Notes

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1 E. Bonfanti, ‘Gropius e il Bauhaus virtuale’, Controspazio, 12 The armed forces also took power in Brazil (1964–1985),
nos 4–5, pp. 72–81. The influence of the Bauhaus could Bolivia (1964–1982), Uruguay (1973–1985) and Chile
be seen at four US educational centres (Harvard, Chicago (1973–1990). Mexico had been governed by the all-pow-
School of Design, Armour Institute of Technology and erful PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) since 1929.
Black Mountain College). 13 This issue has been studied by a number of authors such as
2 Since the fifteenth century, states (the colonies) were Rodríguez Kuri, op. cit., and Zolov. The latter investigated
created to be dependent on the metropolises. As such, the relationship between the Games and the student mas-
Europe occupies the centre and the colonies the periphery. sacre. See E. Zolov, ‘Showcasing the “Land of Tomorrow”:
See A. Quijano & I. Wallerstein, ‘La americanidad como Mexico and the 1968 Olympics’, The Americas, vol. 61,
concepto, o América en el moderno sistema mundial’, no. 2, October 2004, pp. 159–88.
International Social Science Journal, no. 134, 1992, p. 583. 14 Around 1960, ‘third world’ became the standard form of
3 On the reception of the Ulm School in Latin America, describing the countries currently considered peripheral or
see V. Devalle, La Travesía de la Forma: Emergencia y ‘developing countries’ (Escobar, op. cit., pp. 33–4). Zolov
Consolidación del Diseño Gráfico, 1948–1984, Paidós, explains how the international press particularly focused
Buenos Aires, 2009, pp. 113–282, and S. Fernández, on the aspects of infrastructure and altitude. See Zolov,
H. Jacob et al., HfG Ulm, América Latina, Argentina, La op. cit., p. 165. Ramírez Vázquez also commented on how
Plata, authors’ edition, La Plata, 2002. international criticism influenced the design of the Olympic
4 The question of ‘decentralisation’ was tackled by Schwarz Games. See C. Rivas & D. Sarhandi, ‘Olympic Identity’, Eye,
with his notion of ‘misplaced ideas’, that served to theorise vol. 14, no. 56, London, 2005, p. 30.
about the reception of ideas from the metropolises in Latin 15 Similarly, the conservative government of Díaz Ordaz
American culture. See R. Schwarz, Ao Vencedor as Batatas, implemented a policy of repression that led to the violent
Livraria Duas Cidades, Sao Paulo, 1981. showdown of the 1968 protest. See Zolov, op. cit., p. 183.
5 The institutionalisation of design through university teach- 16 M. Traba, Dos décadas vulnerables en las Artes Plásticas
ing occurred in three stages: first in Mendoza (Universidad Latinoamericanas, 1950–1970, Siglo XXI, Buenos Aires,
Nacional de Cuyo, 1958), later in La Plata (Universidad 2005. The author explains that this dichotomy was a con-
Nacional de La Plata, 1963) and lastly in Buenos Aires stant in the field of art during the 1960s.
(Universidad de Buenos Aires, 1985). 17 Zolov, op. cit., p. 163. The Mexican state produced a
6 Bourdieu defines it as ‘foreign sanctions’. See C. Altamirano ‘coherent marketing’ program that made good use of the
& B. Sarlo, Ensayos argentinos: De Sarmiento a la vanguar- strong points of national culture while minimising its politi-
dia, Ariel, Buenos Aires, 1997, pp. 261–8. cal weaknesses.
7 Latin American cultural production was influenced by the 18 L. Castañeda, ‘Beyond Tlatelolco: Design, Media and
recognition of its authors abroad and the incorporation of Politics at Mexico ‘68’, Grey Room, vol. 40, 2010,
‘foreign valuation criteria’ (ibid., pp. 161–99). pp. 100–26. This analysis relates Mexico ‘68 to Ramírez
Vázquez’s previous projects, the 1958 and 1964 World’s
8 For a detailed discussion of the tension between centre
Fairs (Brussels and New York). The Brussels Pavilion had
and periphery, see A. Escobar, Encountering Development:
already incorporated the idea of ‘a young country with
The Making and Unmaking of the Third World, Princeton
ancient roots’.
University Press, Princeton, 1995.
19 Since the 1930s, Mexico’s ‘ancient past’ has been one
9 On the impact of the Games in the city, politics and society,
of the tenets of state propaganda. Nonetheless, a dec-
see A. Rodríguez Kuri, ‘Hacia México ‘68: Pedro Ramírez
ade later, the idea of a ‘young Mexico’ associated with
Vázquez y el proyecto olímpico’, Secuencia, vol. 56, 2003,
economic progress began to take root. These were the
pp. 37–73.
two bases of the Mexican nationalistic discourse. See
10 In view of increased spectator interest in soccer, FIFA Castañeda, op. cit., pp. 103–12.
(Fédération Internationale de Football Association) staged 20 Ramírez Vázquez took charge of the MOC after President
the Intercontinental World Cup, which paved the way for López Mateos resigned due to health issues. On Ramírez
the first World Soccer Championship in Uruguay, 1930. Vázquez’s activities at the helm of the MOC, see Rodríguez
Subsequent Latin American World Cups took place in Kuri, op. cit., p. 47. Ramírez Vázquez was the country’s
Brazil (1950) and Chile (1962). foremost architect at the time and the responsible for the
11 J. Schwartz, Las vanguardias latinoamericanas, FCE, National Museum of Anthropology (1964), the Azteca
Mexico, 2002, p. 531. Stadium (1964–1965) and the Foreign Ministry (1966).

Argentina ‘78 World Cup and the Echoes of Mexico ‘68

72
 These projects formed part of one of the most intense 28 This interpretation is in tune with other studies carried out
state propaganda campaigns undertaken by post-revolu- in the region that analyse the influence of the state on

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tionary Mexico. See Castañeda, op. cit., p. 101. mass communication. Around 1960, the censure of the
21 According to Zolov, ‘underdevelopment’ was a crucial con- Brazilian military dictatorship provoked a ‘modernization’
cept in the perception of Mexico abroad. Unlike other Latin of the TV screen. See I. Sacramento. ‘La televisión brasilera
American countries, Mexico attracted international atten- en los años de la dictadura militar (1964–1984)’, ReHiMe,
tion by maintaining relations with Cuba after the revolu- no. 2, 2012.
tion within the context of the Cold War. See Zolov, op. cit., 29 Zolov refers to folklore as a discursive element within
pp. 162–70. the rhetoric of the cultural Olympics, a strategic decision
22 Thirty-one students travelled from Latin America to study to also appeal to foreign audiences. See Zolov, op. cit.,
at the HfG Ulm (HfG-Archiv Ulm records). Upon return- p. 175.
ing, they created the first study centres. Representative 30 M. González de Cossío, ‘El diseño gráfico en México’,
cases were: Tomás Maldonado (Argentina), a teacher TipoGráfica, no. 67, 2005, p. 36.
and board member of HfG Ulm who was influential
31 Arroyo, for example, was a UIA professor who trained in
in drawing up the first design courses in Argentina;
Chicago and Ulm, and brought back exercises based on
Alexandre Wollner (Brazil), a graduate of the school,
geometric games that were subsequently included in the
who was involved in designing Braun and Lufthansa;
design courses (ibid., p. 34).
Omar Arroyo and Manuel Villazón (Mexicans), who had
visited the HfG Ulm to familiarise themselves with its 32 On the military government’s appropriation of the
study program (later, both became active professors 1978 World Cup, see E. Archetti, ‘Argentina, 1978:
of the first design degree program at UIA, opened in Military Nationalism, Football, Essentialism and Moral
1969). Ambivalence’, in National Identity and Global Sports
Events: Culture, Politics and Spectacle in the Olympics and
23 After an extensive international career in London, Paris and
the Football World Cup, A. Tomlinson & C. Young (eds),
New York (in the offices of George Nelson), Terrazas joined
SUNY Press, New York, 2006.
Ramírez Vázquez’s team for the New York World Fair. See
L. Castañeda, ‘Choreographing the Metropolis: Networks 33 As Castañeda explains, the persisting association between
of Circulation and Power in Olympic Mexico’, Journal of the PRI hegemony, 2 October events and Ramírez
Design History, vol. 25, no. 3, 2012, p. 290. Vázquez’s work prevent ‘in-depth analyses of the buildings
of the era’. See Castañeda, ‘Beyond Tlatelolco’, op. cit.,
24 On the creation of the logotype, see Castañeda,
p. 102. By addressing the design of the 1978 World Cup,
‘Choreographing the Metropolis’, op. cit., pp. 287–8, and
this text became part of the bibliography studied from the
Zolov, op. cit., pp. 172–5. Castañeda also provides infor-
viewpoint of its specificity, rather than from the political
mation on the relations between Terrazas and Wyman at
perspective of the event.
the George Nelson studio prior to the design of Mexico
‘68. Castañeda, ‘Choreographing the Metropolis’, op. cit., 34 The dictatorship encompassed the three wings of the
p. 290. armed forces: the army, air force and navy. The ‘78 World
Cup fell under the navy’s control.
25 On the decisions involving the design of Mexico ‘68, see
also the complementary texts by Rivas & Sarhandi, op. cit., 35 On the design of the ‘78 World Cup, see Summa, no. 117,
and E. Terrazas & B. Trueblood, ‘Letters: This is not Mexico’, October 1977. Different authors were involved in the ‘78
Eye, vol. 15, no. 59, 2006, pp. 74–5. World Cup: Juan Riera (emblem), several cartoonists (mas-
cot), Eduardo López (FIFA poster), and a team headed by
26 Zolov, op. cit., and Castañeda, ‘Beyond Tlatelolco’, op. cit.,
Gui Bonsiepe and Carlos Méndez Mosquera (wayfinding
and ‘Choreographing the Metropolis’, op. cit., reveal how
system).
the design of Mexico ‘68 was co-opted to a large extent by
the MOC’s official discourse: to articulate past and present, 36 Juan Riera, interview by author, Buenos Aires, June, 2006.
tradition and the avant-garde within hybrid aesthetics. 37 Aicher and Martin Krampen studied this psychology of per-
Hybrid cultures may be interpreted as ‘synthesis, collage ception in depth. See O. Aicher & M. Krampen, Sistemas
or pastiches’, that result from combining heterogeneous de signos en la comunicación visual, GG, Mexico City,
elements. See N. García Canclini, Culturas híbridas, Paidós, 1991. González de Cossío, op. cit., also referred to the
Buenos Aires, 2001, pp. 195–235. Gestalt influence on the first Mexican design programs.
27 Terrazas & Trueblood, op. cit., p. 74. Both designers refer 38 Juan Riera, interview. Terrazas and Wyman were also
to the challenge of creating a balanced image of Mexico acquainted with Aicher’s logo. See Mexico 68, vol. 2, The
that would be both local and international, as well as tra- Organization, Official Report of the Organising Committee
ditional and modern. of the Games of the XIXth Olympiad, Mexico City, 1969,

Marta Almeida
73
 pp. 356–7. These pages include the presentation of the concreto-invención, Argentina y Chile, 1940–1970, Ed.
German emblem. ARQ, Santiago de Chile, 2011.

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39 On the conception of Munich ‘72, see H. Kunze (ed.), Die 49 The Ulm philosophy played a crucial role in the academic
Spiele: Official Report of the Organising Committee for the programs in both La Plata and Buenos Aires which also, to
Games of the XXth Olympiad Munich 1972, vol. 1, The a lesser degree, followed the model of the Royal College of
Organization, Munich, 1972, p. 268. London. See Devalle, op. cit., pp. 333–80.
40 On HfG Ulm, see R. Spitz, HfG Ulm. The View Behind the 50 Following Escobar’s critique of developmentalism: ‘the
Foreground: The Political History of the Ulm School of development was a “top down,” ethnocentric and tech-
Design, 1953–1968, Edition Axel Menges, Stuttgart, 2002. nocratic approach that treats cultures as abstract concepts
that can be moved from one side to another in the statis-
41 The group of artists included Alfredo Hlito and Edgar
tics on progress’. Escobar, op. cit., p. 44.
Bayley.
51 This thesis on the ‘strabismus’ of Argentine culture may be
42 T. Maldonado, CEA: Boletín del Centro de Estudiantes
found in D. Viñas, Literatura argentina y realidad política,
de Arquitectura, no. 2, October 1949. A decade earlier,
CEAL, Buenos Aires, 1982, pp. 115–28.
in 1938, the BKF chair had been created. This is consid-
ered to be the first Argentine design with international 52 The etymology of gaucho (in Quechua, huachu) indicates
repercussions. that he is an orphan or vagabond living in the country-
side. On the historical significance of the gaucho, see
43 While other magazines existed (Arturo, Ciclo, CEA), Nueva
A. Cattaruzza, Políticas de la Historia: Argentina 1860–
Visión was the most representative, and its editorial policy
1960, Alianza, Buenos Aires, 2003, pp. 217–19.
continued in Summa. For a detailed analysis of the maga-
zine, see Devalle, op. cit., pp. 251–82. 53 Castañeda, ‘Beyond Tlatelolco’, op. cit., p. 103.

44 Maldonado was a teacher and member of the school 54 In Argentina, the most widespread version was the draw-
board (1954–1966), first as vice-rector (1954–1956) dur- ing by Néstor Córdoba, a member of García Ferré’s anima-
ing Bill’s tenure, later on the governing board with Aicher tion team. Córdoba redrew the mascot on the basis of the
and Hans Gugelot (1956–1962), then as vice-rector dur- preliminary second sketch. Néstor Córdoba, interview by
ing Aicher’s tenure (1962–1964) and finally as head rector author, Buenos Aires, June, 2006.
(1964–1966). See Spitz, op. cit., p. 340. 55 Zolov, op. cit., p. 162.
45 In Latin American culture, there are countless models of 56 The group that most strongly opposed the 1978 World
the intellectual who strives to overcome his own idiomatic Cup was the Committee for the Boycott of the World Cup
limitations in order to gain access to a foreign legacy which in Argentina (COBA), a left-wing organization founded in
helps legitimate his achievements. See A. Fernández Bravo Paris in 1977, with committees in France and throughout
et al., Sujetos en tránsito: (in)migración, exilio y diáspora Europe.
en la cultura latinoamericana, Alianza, Buenos Aires, 2003.
57 Carlos Méndez Mosquera, interview by author, Buenos
46 Within the context of the industrialized countries, the Ulm Aires, June, 2006.
model was conceived as a rational ‘methodology’ gov-
58 On Tokyo 1964 Olympic Games, see J. Traganou, ‘Olympic
erned by science and technology. According to this model,
Design and National History: The Cases of Tokyo 1964 and
the modern world is defined by industry and design helps
Beijing 2008’, Hitotsubashi Journal of Arts and Sciences,
to exploit its immanent innovating potential. Nevertheless,
no. 50, 2009, p. 66.
the Ulm model did not provide a homogenous concept
since in practice it faced certain limitations, subject to 59 On the differences between Katsumi and Aicher’s systems,
industrial realities. See Spitz, op. cit., pp. 21–2. see Kunze, op. cit., p. 272.
47 In Maldonado’s opinion, design is the only means to break 60 In 1954 Katsumi organized the Gropius and the Bauhaus
the vicious circle of the periphery’s technological depend- exhibitions at the National Museum of Modern Art in
ence on the centre. For an introduction to this thesis of Tokyo. In 1957, he translated H. Read, Art and Industry
Maldonado and Bonsiepe, see G. Bonsiepe, Del objeto a la (Faber & Faber, London, 1934) and published his book
interface, Ediciones Infinito, Buenos Aires, 1998. Guddo Dezain (Shinchosha Edition, Tokyo) in 1958.
48 On the group of designers headed by Bonsiepe at the 61 Japanese architecture became widely recognized during
National Institute for Technological Research (INTEC), the 1950s. After visiting Japan, Walter Gropius (invited by
a group that included both Michael Weiss and Werner Tange Kenzo), was wont to tell his students: ‘forget Rome
Zemp (both HfG Ulm designers), see A. Crispiani, and come to Japan!’ See C. Hein et al., Rebuilding Urban
Objetos para transformar el mundo, Trayectorias del arte Japan after 1945, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, p. 200.

Argentina ‘78 World Cup and the Echoes of Mexico ‘68

74
62 N. García Canclini, Consumidores y Ciudadanos: Conflictos 67 Altamirano, Sarlo and Viñas have studied this same peculi-
multiculturales de la globalización, Grijalbo, Mexico, 1995, arity in the field of Argentine literature.

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pp. 91–106. 68 It may be added that between 1930 and 1975, an agro-
63 At least two world sports events used the Munich ‘72 pic- export economic model together with that of import sub-
tograms: the Montreal ‘76 Olympics and the 1978 Soccer stitution predominated in Argentina.
Championship. But prior to the 1976 design, Aicher had 69 This view has been fostered by the ‘cult to the biography’,
already used Expo ‘67 as a reference (Kunze, op. cit., p. 271); that reads Maldonado’s stay in Ulm as an epic and roman-
hence there was a mutual prior exchange. In Mexico, tic account. See P. Bourdieu, Intelectuales, política y poder,
Expo ‘67 also influenced the MOC. See L. Castañeda, Eudeba, Buenos Aires, p. 25.
‘Choreographing the Metropolis’, op. cit., p. 291.
70 The pretension of devising a ‘design methodology’ capa-
64 C. Méndez Mosquera, interview. ble of transcending all contexts may be debated in the
65 Since 1963, Summa has been a renowned publication light of a critique of Eurocentrist epistemology. The Ulm
among Argentine design and architecture intelligentsia. project was closely linked to modernity’s discourse that
Between 1960 and 1970, the magazine was directed by considers that expert knowledge (expressed in three lan-
Méndez Mosquera. In 1974, Bonsiepe joined the staff as a guages: English, French and German) was exported from
design consultant, his first article being ‘Diseño Industrial, Europe to the rest of the world. See W. Mignolo, ‘Espacios
funcionalismo y tercer mundo’, 1970. geográficos y localizaciones epistemológicas’, Dissens,
66 Advertisement for the World Cup benches by Petracca, no. 3, 1996.
Acelco, Anelit (PAM), published in Summa, no. 117, 71 Zolov, op. cit., p. 170, and Castañeda, ‘Beyond Tlatelolco’,
October 1977, p. 21 op. cit., p. 103, respectively.

Marta Almeida
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