Massidda, A.L. orcid.org/0000-0001-8735-7990 (2019) Design exchanges in mid-twentieth century Buenos Aires: the programme Parque Almirante Brown and its process of creative appropriation. Journal of Design History, 32 (1). pp. 35-51. ISSN 0952-4649
Abstract
This article offers a critical analysis of planning and housing design in mid-twentieth century Buenos Aires, Argentina, within the wider global context of modern design and architecture. In particular, the article focuses on an urban development programme, Parque Almirante Brown (PAB), and on its design plans for slums, shantytowns and social housing. The PAB creatively intertwined elements from different design and planning traditions, including urban design approaches fostered by the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM).
This article argues that the way in which the PAB incorporated these approaches implies the selection of concepts that responded to the government’s political agenda. In other words, it was only through their intersection with local political anxieties that international ideas were included in the actual design of the programme. Specifically, with regard to informal settlements, the PAB followed modern architectural practices based on slum clearance. Simultaneously, it filtered out those ideas which celebrated the vernacular, registered positive aspects in slum life, or granted agency to grassroots groups. Thus, despite contemporaneous discussions which engaged with bottom-up participation, such as those of Team 10, the PAB ultimately proposed the eradication of the shantytowns and the forced displacement of their inhabitants.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Design History Society. This is an author-produced version of a paper subsequently published in Journal of Design History. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > School of Architecture (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 03 Nov 2022 14:53 |
Last Modified: | 04 Nov 2022 14:13 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Oxford University Press (OUP) |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1093/jdh/epx036 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:192829 |