Buenos Aires

Here are a few highlights of the many fascinating buildings, plazas and landmarks of this city. As interesting as they may be on their own, the best part about this city are the things you find by accident - the beautiful buildings hidden around every corner reminding you of what this city once was...

Downtown B.A. looking towards Plaza de Mayo

Plaza de Mayo

The main square of Buenos Aires celebrates it´s independence from Spain on May 25, 1810. The temporary fence has been in place to control protests since about 2001 when the country was hit with a serious economic crisis.

San Telmo is a neighbourhood where wealthy residents built homes in a colonial style. After a serious epidemic most moved to higher land in Buenos Aires´northern area and San Telmo mansions were converted into tenements by the thousands of immigrants arriving from Europe.


Recoleta Cementary - the most prestigious place to be buried

El Ateneo Bookstore - previously a cinema

Microcentro street scene. Corner building designed by Antoní Bonet in 1939.

Banco de Londres by Clorindo Testa, 1960

Puerto Madero was the old port district now converted into high end shops, restaurants and condos. The bridge is by Calatrava.

'Floralis Genérica' by architect Eduardo Catalano. The sculpture opens and closes based the light of the sun.


Riding Buenos Aires' Metro (SUBTE) can be a truly cultural experience. It was the first in South America when it opened in 1913 and sometimes it feels as if not all that much has changed. Riding the A line involves manually opening the doors of the vintage wood interior trains, enjoying the beautiful tiled murals in all stations and stopping at newspaper stands that sell books by Borges or Sábato alongside Playboy and the tabloids. That said, the trains are very slow, crowded and hot and the hallways are narrow and with my height you've got to watch out.

I have had the privilege to experience this spectacular city from an apartment with a view in Recoleta. Looking out towards the Rio de la Plata you see a fascinating linear progression of land uses. Directly below is Avenida del Libertador (an 11 lane avenue) with a park on the other side, then a string or soccer fields, next a large rail corridor, then an informal settlement of several thousands (villa miseria in spanish), then a elevated highway and finally the huge port of Buenos Aires. It is a captivating sight in the mornings. Now I am off to the Retiro station to catch the overnight train to Cordoba to meet my beautiful Andrea!

Peculiarities of the Good Airs

The romantic and sophisticated Buenos Aires is what draws the crowds of tourists, yet I find myself (in a somewhat cynical state of mind) passing up the luxurious european architecture and countless offers of tango shows. Given the precarious state of dial up connection at my uncles apartment I will not add any photos and instead will share a few comments on what I find strange aspects of life here.

BUS CHANGE:
Every single time I have walked by the Retiro train station there is a line up of several hundred people infront of a government kisok named MONEDAS (coins). Buses here only accept coins and I have learned from experience that yes it is that difficult to find change. I have found myself taking taxis not because there are no buses but because I have lots of bills, no coins and ´nobody has change´.

GUIA ´T´ DE BOLSILLO:
Having for the most part failed at figuring out the Santiago bus system, I decided to purchase the bus route guide for Buenos Aires: Guia T pocket edition. Its organization of information is quite peculiar. It does not contain (neither does the whole city as far as I know) a single route map. It has maps of the city divided into 36 zones each with 24 sub quadrents and it lists the corresponding bus numbers that pass through each quadrent. To find a bus you determine your start zone (lets say Map 10 A-6) and your desired destination (Map 17 C-5) and then compare the two lists of bus numbers and hope there is a match. If not, good luck!

FUERA BOTNIA, SI A LA VIDA:
On the way back from the Gualeguaychú carnaval (a couple hundred km north of B.A.) we visited a bridge with a view of a Uruguayan cellulose plant that has become very famous. This international border crossing between Argentina and Uruguay has been road blocked for 2 years. Local citizen groups and environmental activists have closed the highway demanding that the huge foreign owned factory on the bank of the Rio Uruguay be closed down. All international traffic and trade must use the next crossing several hundred km upstream.

I also wanted to send a big thanks to all my incredibly generous family and friends that have made sure that I have not had to open my wallet for a hotel room since December 5th!

El Sur

The past few weeks have been spent relaxing and eating with family at the beach, the farm or in the mountains. Always thinking ahead, I swung by Chile´s version of Canadian Tire to pick up an $18 tent before heading up into the Cordillera to spend New Years with the family in Valle Rio Puelo.

Cancura, Grandmother´s farm.

El Salto, Llanada Grande, Valle Puelo

When the whole family left, I hired a guide, Juan ´Mentira´ Martinez for a cabalgata (horse trek) through some beautiful mountain valleys. What I didn´t expect was such a cultural experience. Juan used to live in this valley so every farm we passed (about 2 per day) we would stop in for a couple rounds of mate amargo. At one friend´s house we were given a sack with a dead goat inside. Menu for the next 4 days: Asado al palo de chivo con pan.

Lago Vidal Gormaz

Juan left me in the magnificent Junta del Rio Cochamo (one of South America´s up and coming rock climbing spots) where I camped out with some chilean backpackers for 5 days.

Cerro Arcoiris with Martin. Yes I´m wearing 2 pairs of glasses.

Santiago

View from Cerro Santa Lucia

I will not attempt to summarize, just share a few experiences. Many family and friends of very different professional and political backgrounds showed me around the city, offering contrasting opinions on why things are the way they are.

Monasterio Benedictino, Martin Correa & Gabriel Guarda, 1950´s

Edificio Posgrado, Universidad Adolfo Ibañez, Peñalolen

The Santiago transit system is slowly putting itselft back together after a catastrophic failure due to a poorly planned and politically motivated modernization scheme called Transantiago. I´ll only add that it is a very popular conversation topic. On a metro I saw this ad:

It sums up well one of the many tensions that exist in this city. La Dehesa (pictured below) looks like most American suburbs, except the fences are twice as high and electric. As a good friend of my father put it: Santiago se esta comiendo los cerros. Now I must admit that I write these words just a few weeks after having enjoyed multiple asados at my uncle´s house in los altos de Lo Curro, zipping to a from downtown on la Costanera Norte (the new private highway buried beside Santiago´s defining Rio Mapocho).


There is much more to say of course and while Santiago has its negatives, its downtown is wonderfully vibrant, the parks are beautiful and mountains are so close.

101 años despues

Well it´s not quite the same voyage, but it is 101 years later.


I have learned an interesting piece of my family history while visiting an uncle in Santiago that I would like to share. Walterio Meyer Rusca left Switzerland in 1907 (at age 25) for Chile to work an 8 month contract as a railway survey engineer. He boarded a steamboat in Genova and arrived 3 weeks later in Buenos Aires. From there he went by train to Mendoza, and by small gauge train up into the Andes. He crossed the mountains by horse carriage and continued to the pacific ocean by train. A boat from the port of Valparaiso took him to the north where he worked. The following year Walterio returned to Chile again to work in the South and this time decided to stay.

Cruzando Paso de Juncal

Cuesta de los Buitres

Los ayudantes

Walterio wrote a diary of his travels and work and took many photographs which he would send home to his parents. His Diario de vida 1907-1909 Chile will be published next year in Spanish and German and will include letters and over 100 photos.

The ideal city?

Brasilia for me has been a wonderfully relaxing change of pace and lifestyle. I stayed with very good family friends with whom I toured the city (mostly from the passenger seat of a car).



Brasilia was built from scratch in the late 50´s and the masterplan was designed by Lucio Costa. It became the capital of Brazil in 1960. Monumentality, segregation and speed are the first impressions of the city. The private automobile rules here and there are separate sectors for apartments, hotels, houses, mansions, and offices.

View of the eje monumental.

Cathedral of Brasilia, Oscar Niemeyer, 1970

Brasilia´s monumental architecture left me feeling rather empty. One quickly gets over the initial shock of the expressive shapes, curves and scale of Niemeyer´s buildings and realizes that their formalism makes them feel like sculptures with little relation to the city or Brasilia´s climate. There is a very Brazilian contradiction evident here. Buildings constructed to imitate a machine aesthetic were built using low-tech construction methods by poor migrant workers from the North-East. Unfortunately, the promise of an equal city for all who built it never came true and despite Brasilia´s wealth a large amount of the population lives in poor settlements in the `satellite cities'.

I am now in Chile, having arrived in a somewhat removed state of mind - having gone directly from the discoteca to the airport for an early morning flight.

Urban Age South America

The conference was located in the beautiful Estacao Julio Prestes in downtown Sao Paulo and was a big deal for a whole bunch of local politicians. All these mayors and officials are great speakers but their statements and promises are often dubious. However, there was also a great representation of well known local and international urbanists, architects, activists and policy makers.

Some of the major themes that were discussed were...

Fragmented urban governance - ie. the boundaries of a city don´t correspond with the extent of the built up area. This leads to poor coordination between city government and other regions regarding important issues like public transport, roads, land use planning, water infrastructure and environmental regulations.

Global economic crisis - what will it mean for cities? Probably further increase in informal sectors but also potential opportunities for urban reform.

Segregation - Sao Paulo has evolved into something much more complex than the wealthy centre vs poor periphery duality. Major business centres moved out of the decaying downtown and informal settlements have continued to grow.

Small-scale interventions - Many interesting projects were presented by architects and designers that are improving life in cities such as Medellin (Colombia), Santiago de Chile, Rio de Janeiro and Mumbai.

There is much more to write of course but to finish I must add that never have I been treated so well. Paid for in full by the Alfred Herrhausen Society, we were given countless lunches, dinners, drinks and social events. It was all a bit surreal for me.