1953 Viermond S.A. Plan of Montevideo directed by Eladio Dieste

Foundational Work in Uruguayan Urban Engineering.

This large, rare, and detailed plan of Montevideo was printed in 1953 by and for Pilotes Viermond, the Uruguayan engineering and architectural company now known as Viermond S.A., as an internal reference document recording the company's activities to date. That it was an internal company document is supported by its lack of a title, a printed prohibition on reproducing the plan, and its great rarity. The focus on the company's completed projects, combined with the lack of technical detail, suggests it was intended to illustrate those achievements, perhaps to shareholders.

A Closer Look

This black and white printed plan constitutes a detailed street map of Montevideo and its suburbs. Apart from coastlines and rivers, the map in general ignores topography, in service of a focus on the city grid and street names. The map reaches from the Rio de la Plata in the south up to the neighborhoods of Peñarol and Piedras Blancas; it covers from Barrio Casabó in the west to Carrasco in the east. Administrative divisions are numbered. An inset in the upper right details the neighborhoods of Lezica and Melilla (northwest of the main map), and another in the lower right focuses on the area around the city's railway station. There are smaller insets presenting in detail the towns of Santiago Vázquez and Abayuba, and one expanded plan of the neighborhood surrounding José Batlle y Ordóñez Park. A simple key assigns two symbols to the primary points the plan is intended to frame: the locations of foundations constructed by Viermond S.A. and the locations of subsoil tests undertaken by the company. Of each, there are hundreds marked throughout the plan, standing in testimony of Viermond's massive impact on Montevideo's infrastructure. Although the postwar history of Montevideo is characterized by its economic stagnation, these doldrums appear not to have spread to Viermond: if the evidence of the plan is an accurate indication, the period from its founding in 1946 to the execution of this 1953 plan was, for the company, a productive one.

The Role of Eladio Dieste

This plan was produced at the height of the tenure of famed architect Eladio Dieste (December 1, 1917 - July 19, 2000) as Viermond's Chief Engineer and Director (1949 - 1958). The innovator Dieste had pioneered many of the drilling techniques on which the company based its apparent domination of Montevideo's underpinning, as made evident here. Dieste's executive position suggests that he was not so much the author of this plan as he was the author of the works it enumerates; the corporate draftsmen and printers responsible for the actual execution of the plan are not known.

Publication History and Census

This plan was printed in lithograph and was probably an in-house production of Viermond S.A. (absent any other printers' imprint, or marks of authorship). It is not cataloged in OCLC, and we have seen no other examples on the market.

Cartographer

Viermond S.A. (1946 - Present) is a Uruguayan construction and engineering company, specializing in piling and other deep foundation engineering techniques. Its history is closely tied to that of the famed Uruguayan engineer and architect Eladio Dieste (December 1, 1917 - July 29, 2000), who was the company's Chief Engineer and Director during the foundational years of 1949 - 1958. Dieste pioneered the company's specialized drilling techniques and equipment.   Further Details...

Condition

Good. Trimmed into border with some loss. Some marginal mends, recornered with manuscript reinstatement of border.

References

Not in OCLC.