Sistemas BGB y BSC (1949-56). Las viviendas prefabricadas de Antonio Bonet

Abstract

As a result of Antonio Bonet’s first experiences with prefabrication, and his interest in geometry and the modulation of space, during his Argentinian stage in the 1950s, he developed two trials of totally industrialised serial dwellings. The BGB and BSC Systems, were two constructive models of comprehensive prefabrication that Bonet designed as possible technical solutions to the housing problems, and with which he attempted to improve the middle-of-the-road construction, between the traditional and the standardised. Without losing their references, contextualised within their production, and within the international debate around housing industrialisation, both systems were designed from the habitable space and from its tectonics, surpassing the technical or the constructive, to give rise to the quality of the architectural object. Contemplated as generalizable prototypes, Bonet designed a single-family house in the case of the BGB System, and a block of houses for a neighbourhood unit in the BSC System. In spite of the difference of scale, both prototypes considered the complete prefabrication of the house by means of perfectly modulated elements that would allow variations, and which would resolve the small interior scale of the furniture, the structure or the envelope.