[Luli Pop]

Buenos Aires was one of the 4 bigger cities in the world in the early XX century with Paris, London and New York.

Thanks to its Italian craft-manhood, french ideal, and a load of architects coming from Europe, BA was constructed with the higher standards of design and materials, and with as many styles as origins of its immigrants.

More info: http://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/10/travel/where-architecture-is-multilingual.html

Unhappily an architectural genocide is taking place since the beginning of the 60s. Not much remains, and still it's been demolished.

Buenos Aires is losing it's heritage and it's identity.

In this first post I will just show some pictures of demolished theaters, some lyric, some comedy, a couple with cinematographer.

 

[wolfpaw]

Bizarre. What is their excuse for demolishing them? 'Progress'? 'Improvements'? Where I live it was usually 'road-widening' or 'we need more space for bigger shops'.

Makes me sick. >(

Unfortunately what the citizens want means absolutely nothing. We just have to live in the mess made by other people.

 

[Luli Pop]

a couple of those demolitions where in the 80s, the excuse was always that they were "private property".

the problem is that demolitions continue in Buenos Aires.
last year World Monuments Fund put BA in its world heritage in danger.

since then thousands of heritage buildings have been and are being demolished.

 

[wolfpaw]

a couple of those demolitions where in the 80s, the excuse was always that they were "private property".

the problem is that demolitions continue in Buenos Aires.
last year World Monuments Fund put BA in its world heritage in danger.

since then thousands of heritage buildings have been and are being demolished.

So who is behind the demolitions? The civic authorities? Or is it private companies? Either way, it should be stopped because once these buildings are gone they're usually gone forever. And I bet the replacements are visually disgusting!

 

[Luli Pop]

government corruption that allows it, and unscrupulous real state developers.

 

[Ian]

And those pics are only like 5%... keep posting luli!! Let's show the world how monkeys we are :lol:

 

[Luli Pop]

Anchorena Palace, by Jules Dormal

 

[StenvenBex]

same vietnam- saigon, my country

 

[Luli Pop]

Some demolished heritage in BA (some recently) designed by genial italian architect Giovani Buschiazzo:

 

[Botswana]

Let me guess, they probably replaced them with horrid grey apartment buildings? :nuts:

 

[chris_maiden]

^^ Probably

 

[Luli Pop]

surely!

 

[The Cake On BBQ]

I've seen the thread about demolitions in Buenos Aires in Arg. forum and it really frustrated me! Doesn't Buenos Airites protest, sue people who do this? I mean, this is just beyond an architectural genocide hno:

 

[missioneiro]

Well... it's very bad, but... the worst demolitions that took place on the world I think was on Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, considered the Tropical Paris in the early XX century now has ***NOTHING*** left from its heritage. Amazing buildings have been replaced by 70's boxes with 30 floors... it's a big shame...

Buenos Aires citizens must fight because its heritage is vast and really impressive!

 

[cameronpaul]

Right about Rio, there are still some important late19th/early 20th buildings in the city centre, but the destruction in the 60's and 70's was unbelievable.

Interestingly, because of these losses they are now keen to keep what is still there and instead of demolition many of the older buildings are being restored.

Buenos Aires seems to be way out of step with most civilized countries where heritage is now deemed important - in most European cities it is very difficult to demolish important buildings from the past and this applies to Australia, Canada and even to a lesser extent the U.S.A. where greed still sometimes wins out,but not always, as it did in the 60's 70s and 80's. San Francisco led the way in preservation in the U.S. and other cities have since followed.

 

[sebvill]

What happen in many Latin American cities in the XXth century like Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo is repulsive!

Bizarre. What is their excuse for demolishing them? 'Progress'? 'Improvements'? Where I live it was usually 'road-widening' or 'we need more space for bigger shops'.

.

I think the first big demolition that took place in Buenos Aires was with the construction of the 9 de Julio Avenue that began in 1912. This is the Worlds widest avenue and was only completed in the late 40´s, however for its construction they destroyed dozens of blocks of good architecture.

 

[seba_bolso]

It's depressing, I think most of the demolition took place in the 60s and 70s with the boom of ugly apartment buildings and commies.


I often hear of protest groups against demolitions in the city, how much did they acomplish? I know some buildings and areas are now considered "heritage of the city" and they can't be demolished, but I think most areas still need protection against this crime and we need a stronger legislation too.

 

[Luli Pop]

What happen in many Latin American cities in the XXth century like Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo is repulsive!



I think the first big demolition that took place in Buenos Aires was with the construction of the 9 de Julio Avenue that began in 1912. This is the Worlds widest avenue and was only completed in the late 40´s, however for its construction they destroyed dozens of blocks of good architecture.

the extremes of 9 de Julio where finished in the 80/90s, we are talking about kilometers of demolitions. also for the construction of and elevated highway 11 km long, historical neighbourhoods were demolished; the original plan was to build 7 of these highways all around the city.

Rio demolished much much much less than BA, the difference is that Rio demolished almost EVERYTHING.

BA was called the Paris of America in the 20s, not now.

Just the amount of threaters demolished in BA is scandalous.

For instance, all Plaza de Mayo buildings where demolished but the cathedral. they even started demolition of Casa Rosada but it was later stopped and now 25% of it lacks.

Av de Mayo is the only almost complete street remainning. Callao Av was fully demolished. it first had 3 stories french "hotel particuliers", then it was all demolished and now there are big buildings.

in Avenida Alvear there where at least 25 residential real palaces, only 4 remain.

Belgrano had a hundred or more palaces and hotels particuliers in several styles but mostly french and german/anglonormadian; remaining maybe 4.

even the Cabildo was demolished but then reconstructed.

another difference is that BA demolished firstly, so people that don't know the history of heritage see a building from the early 40s or 30s and think it was the first building in that place; but truly there was a palace, hotel particulier o little heritage house.

all avenues have been widden, even the central ones, and thousands of big, huge, small buildings have been demolished.

I think the situation can only be compared with NY in the 30s.

 

[Luli Pop]

in Av de Mayo:

the one in the corner:

the one under the planes nose:

two:

the three have been demolished:

two ugly "modernisations"

the 2 on the left:

fire + demolition:

there are lots more of Av. de Mayo...

one corner in Callao

Hotel particulier where King of Spain stayed when in BA:

This is also in Callao, you must put atention cause the pic is too small. see behind the two big buildings lots and lots of 3 o 4 stories hotels particuliers. it was 1,5km like that, side by side petits hotels and hotels particulier; most french style some italian ALL DEMOLISHED from the 60s till today:

another corner in Corrientes

all the buildings right side of the "greek" one:

some "hotels patirculiers" demolished:

all ornaments and sculptures dissapeared:

in Florida Street (almost all Florida Street was demolished)

the small one:

all but the big one (the French style one at the end of the street was a private residence, then the the bombed Israeli Embassy in Arroyo-Alvear, see the second pic):

In Avenida Alvear:

Everything demolished but the last on the right

All of them but the one in the middle and the one with white umbrellas

All of them demolished, those where houses, not appartments:

All of them demolished but the big one:

7 palaces demolished on Avenida Alvear, one next to the other:

former president's residence:

this was tipical BA in Argentina's Belle Epoque, almost everything has been/is been demolished:

some pics from SCC, others from Machado and Perlin

 

[chris_maiden]

^^ Buenos Aires is still today a beautiful city, but there is no doubt that much was lost in those years, we had similar architectural heritage in terms of quantity of cities like London, today the number is much lower. For this reason, we must protect all of the architectural heritage that the city still maintains, that certainly is something, complain about what the city lost is not helpful, we must think about protecting all the heritage that is still in the city.

I don't like this thread Luli, is very sad and disappointing..