As a pioneer of Neo-Andean architecture, Freddy Mamani Silvestre attracts attention far beyond the borders of Bolivia. His non-conformist designs are influenced by the culture of the Aymara, the biggest ethnical group in the country, echoing their myths and patterns. Buildings constructed between 2008 and 2021 are circled, inspected and captured, in part 35 of the ongoing series “Photography and beyond”.

Like giant jewels, the Cholets rise into the sky above the Bolivian city of El Alto, at 4,000 metres above sea level. Cholets, a neologism created from chalet and Cholo, the local term for indigenous people, are the creations of architect Freddy Mamani Silvestre, born in 1971. Several dozen buildings designed by him adorn the otherwise fairly unglamorous city otherwise mainly dominated by raw red brick. Mamani’s built fantasies, on the other hand, are striking, arrogant and bold. Snakes seem to be slithering up their facades, scattered diamonds cling to the glazing and occasionally the whole thing is crowned by a stand-alone residential building. But the Cholets are mainly used for festivities, because they house the so-called “salones de eventos”. Emigholz unlocks psychoactive places that evoke the interior of pinball machines and, in their confident splendour, triumph over the richer neighbouring city of La Paz.

Slaughterhouses with concrete blades on top, monumental cemetery gates in the plains: Architect Francisco Salamone (1897–1959) shaped the image of the Argentinean pampa around Buenos Aires. In part 34 of his “Photography and beyond” series, Heinz Emigholz once more probes architecture for biographical traces. Salamone, who immigrated from Sicily as a child, realised his ideas between 1936 and 1940, when Mussolini’s Italy re-discovered architecture as an ideological craft.

Axes seem to be buried in the façade of the Coronel Pringles city hall. Elsewhere, stone tree fungi grow. And in front of the Saldungaray cemetery, viewed from the rear, a giant pancake or satellite dish forms, while in front the head of a suffering Jesus protrudes from the concrete. Monumental designs, occasionally incorporating elements of Art Deco or Italian Futurism, towering in the sky and advertising importance. Francisco Salamone worked in the years of the “Década infame”, that infamous decade followed shortly afterwards by the presidency of Juan Perón. The buildings seem inhospitable and full of hubris. They are supposed to herald modernity and progress and yet loomed terrifyingly over the peasantry of the country. Heinz Emigholz documents these intimidating buildings from every conceivable angle.