This article written by Alberto Jochamowitz on the International Exposition [of Art and Technology in Modern Life] in 1937, in which he questions the “nudism” of modern architecture. The text represents a defense of ornamental or decorative architecture, which if present would in his opinion define, the “artistic” quality of a building. For the author, as well as, for a large part of local architects and artists, the search of the “modern” and the “national” was not conceived with a spirit of rupture from the past but rather of a continuity, and in being able to translate into an innovative ornamental repertoire. Thereby, one can understand Jochamowitz’s expressed rejection when confronted with the prevailing architectural rationalism, which he ironically describes as “cubist” or “nudist.” In a sense, his attitude was very close to that of Barreda, although both differed in what they believed was the assigned pre-Columbian past and the role it played in the formation of an eventual “Peruvian art.” The rejection confronted by the indigenous trends was extensive and included other governmental departments, as was evidenced when absent were the principal indigenous artists in the shipment from Peru to the International Exposition. However, the country’s successful participation at the contest was marked by a rhetoric that appealed to Pre-Columbian ornamentation or by ethnographic representation as a means of defining “Peruvian art.” Two years later, this identification between “the indigenous” and “the national” was the cause of violent critiques by the Peruvian artistic circles, sent from Paris by Enrique Domingo Barreda. Enormously influential in the highest levels of Peru, this pertinacious devotee of academic impressionism had developed an outstanding career as an artist in Europe. In 1918, he was central to the formation of the ENBA by promoting the hiring of the Spanish sculptor Manuel Piqueras Cotolí as professor at the institution. Thus, Barreda denied any possibility of artistic crossbreeding. Thereby, rejecting the prestigious theories of the Argentinean architects Martín Noel and Ángel Guido regarding colonial architecture, belittling the indigenous component of the neo-Peruvian style formulated by Piqueras himself. In early 1939 Enrique Domingo Barreda, an academic artist, sent from the French capital a letter regarding Peru’s participation in the 1937 International Exposition. Published in Lima in the magazine El Arquitecto Peruano, the text was a virulent attack against the professed “nationalist” orientation assumed by the art of his country. He rejected the aesthetic validity of both tendencies that mostly grouped systematic efforts in pursuit of a “nationalistic” art or an ethnographic representation and the incorporation of pre-Columbian decorative elements, etcetera. In fact, both tendencies were noticeable as the image of Peru at the Parisian exhibition of 1937, with a pavilion (designed by architect Roberto Haaker Fort) as an attempt in translating international modernist Art-Déco in “nationalistic” terms via Pre-Hispanic decorative elements. Although an official maneuver prevented Sabogal’s indigenism and other artists’ representation from sending their works, the art works submitted still revolved around a nativist thematic repertoire. If Barreda described the art canvases as “art Nègre,” in the Architectural field he directed his acidic comments against the project of the Basilica de Santa Rosa (designed by the architect Héctor Velarde from the sketches left by Piqueras Cotolí. What was radically inherent of the Basilica de Santa Rosa was both its “Neo-Peruvian” style and in its monumental scale. Barreda’s attack motivated letters sent by Mercedes Gallagher and Luis Miró Quesada Garland, centered in relative defense of the indigenous pictorial art. In indirect response, the editors of El Arquitecto Peruano published the article written by Jochamowitz, one of the organizers of Peru’s participation in the exhibition, in the magazine number following the one prior that published Barreda and made his invectives public.