Buenos Aires’ Memory

About the Book

Buenos Aires’ neighborhoods accommodate a diversity of architectural typologies that, from the 19th century and through much of the 20th century, have given the city its character, identity, and uniqueness. This cultural heritage belongs to its residents and is now at risk: regulations are insufficient while developments by a dominant sector of the real-estate market are erasing urban memory and aggravating the environmental crisis. 

This book seeks to build knowledge and awareness to help us choose how to live, what to protect, and how to plan the desired home in the long term—a shared home of our own, the big house that the city is and which cannot be conceived of as an object frozen in time but rather as a moving organism, one that holds its value and raison d'etre only when that movement is coherent and responds to the real needs of its inhabitants. 

Excerpt

Most of us, for various reasons and circumstances, choose to live in cities. Argentina, in particular, is among the most urbanized countries in the world, with about 92 percent of its population residing in cities. The country is home to one of the world’s largest urban agglomerations: the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area, where nearly fifteen million people live. 

Within this area is the country's capital, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires—a metropolis marvelous for its diverse neighborhoods and architectural styles that, as a sort of palimpsest, speak to the passage of time, to the different ways to inhabit the city, to past trades and occupations that are not a mere testimony of bygone times but also build identity, culture, idiosyncrasy, and a sense of belonging. In the face of the loss of some of the city's heritage buildings due to a certain lack of sensitivity in government decisions, the illustrations in this publication become an active form of memory seeking to denounce and reflect about what has been lost. They are the past in the present standing as a pillar of the urban landscape that has been built and rebuilt over many decades.

Far from dwelling on complaints or introspection, we are here to share a project called “I illustrate not to forget” which speaks to us through the power of testimony. It consists of unique, peculiar structures that used to belong to our city, our neighborhood, our heritage, our everyday landscape. Victims of a real-estate market that shows very little commitment to built heritage, and with the consent of those who should advocate for the protection of public property but fail to do so—due to lack of knowledge and misinformed management—these buildings have vanished. The architectural diversity expressed in these drawings traces a path of destruction to spare us from further illustrating loss, to raise collective awareness of what has been lost, and to spur people to act. 

Here you will find a summary of buildings of exceptional value that have ceased to exist in recent years in the city of Buenos Aires. Although lengthy, it is by no means complete, but only a small sample. We strive to describe, understand and propose ideas about what is happening and what could happen to the urban cultural heritage that we still possess and refuse to let go. We seek to awaken sensitivity to find ways to act, out of love for the city we inhabit and wish to hand on to future generations.

Translated by Martín Juan - Edited by Alejandra Rogante