Historical Center of the City of Buenos Aires on the World Monuments Watch 2010 list of Endangered Sites

In the area there are around 100 National Historical Monuments and over 800 listed lots. In 2007 the Secretary of Culture of the City identified another 1200 buildings as having heritage value, but as yet unprotected. However, the amount of valuable examples worthy of protection is even greater.

Site history

In 1536, Pedro de Mendoza founded a city, which was but short-lived. In 1580, Juan de Garay founded the city a second time, its center being where the present Plaza de Mayo is located.
For 150 years it was a village of 30 blocks, 12,000 inhabitants and few relevant buildings: the Fort, the Cabildo and the Cathedral. The first urban expansion phase was in the mid-XVIII century, when the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata was created.
It was here that two English invasions were repelled, and here the process leading to independence from Spain began.
From 1860, the Nation was increasingly consolidated and the consequent material progress resulted in a great increase in building. The urban pattern was modified with the opening of Avenida de Mayo and the diagonal avenues. Both the political leadership and private individuals copied the great European and North American urban centers, importing styles, architects and materials. Massive immigratory influx from Europe provided a workforce of qualified artists and craftsmen.
Due to a yellow fever epidemic most of the wealthier sector of the population moved to the North, the vacant sectors thus created in the South were occupied by immigrants.
Towards the mid-XX century quality architecture was replaced by architecture of lesser design and constructive value.

Enormous increase in area built

The average construction rate in the last 20 years in Buenos Aires was 1,000,000 square meters per year; in 2008 it was 6,000,000, a great part of which was in the Historic Center, causing the demolition of existing buildings. 

Historic Center of the City of Buenos Aires

The ensemble listed by the WMW is an urban territory of great vitality, combining as no other city area, the city’s history and memory.
This is where the city was founded; it has been the seat of the Government of the Argentine Nation since its foundation. It is the most important commercial and financial center of the country.
Home to the religious and governmental buildings of the first period of building development, 1750 - 1830, the convents of Santo Domingo, San Ignacio, San Francisco and La Merced, it also houses monumental public buildings of the second expansion period, 1860 - 1930, representative of institutional consolidation and great economic development. Monumental constructions such as the Palace of Congress, important banking and commercial buildings, and private dwellings belong to this period.
The proposed ensemble has been, ever since the first period, consolidated as a place of public, religious, cultural and political activities.
It is seat of national and local administration, headquarters to the main private corporations and banking City.
Universities, public and private educational institutions, museums, theaters, cinemas and exhibition halls are located here, while it conserves its use as a residential zone for all social classes.
The Recoleta cemetery, with many mausoleums of great artistic value, is located here.
An important number of works of art of the late XIX, and XX centuries can be seen in the public spaces; among these, an original of Rodin’s “Thinker”.
The Historic Center contains the live testimonies of a past which was determinant for the formation of Argentine society. It must be preserved in order to project solidly into the future.
 

CHALLENGES

The decay and destruction of cultural heritage has recently intensified because:
The currently-valid Urban Planning Code encourages construction while evading the issue of heritage protection, becoming the worst enemy of its conservation due to the occupation and use factors which it permits.

• The norms and model of administrative procedures required for conservation are inadequate, entailing lengthy bureaucratic listing processes, and lacking effective control.
• The area’s vitality and its high real-estate value are incentives for developers. In the 3rd quarter 2008, the surface authorized for new construction rose 567% in the commercial zone to the North of Plaza de Mayo, and by 135% in the historical zone to its South.
• Pressure from private investors with lobbying capacity to obtain exceptions and modify norms.
• The absence of vacant lots, which “justifies” demolitions and inadequate interventions that denaturalize the area.
• The community’s and government officials’ lack of knowledge concerning the importance of cultural heritage and its conservation.
• Interventions in public space of heritage value, ill-considered, hastily executed, seeking notoriety and political dividends (e.g.: Plaza de Mayo, Defensa street and Parque Pereyra).
• Decay and physical degradation in public and private properties.  
• The absence of economic, financial and technical stimuli that may allow owners to perform adequate maintenance.
• The scarcity of qualified labor and the lack of centers for their technical and professional training.

ACTION PLAN

Objectives:

• Promote public awareness and citizen participation in the defense of cultural heritage
• Propose a clear normative corpus to be complied with without exception
• Propose a coordinated and participative model of operation, under the care of competent professionals, selected by contest and integrating the community organizations working on this matter
• Promote a complete, definitive listing of all the city’s cultural heritage objects.

Actions:
Within the framework of the Bicentennial we propose activities to draw the community’s and Government’s attention to the destruction of the city’s Historic Center:

• Forum for specialists to debate conservation and management policies for the Historic Center;
• Photographic exhibition on the history and the present situation of the area;
• Website for reference;
• Permanent presence in mass media;
• Editing information material;
• Support and promotion in the City Legislature of bills for the protection of cultural heritage.
• Draw up a technical document in order to incorporate the conservation of architectural and urban heritage objects in the new Urban Code.

Feasibility:
Legal, press and social mobilization action, similar to the actions proposed here, have already been implemented by Basta de Demoler since its beginnings in 2007, obtaining great public impact.
Achievements:

• It was possible to halt ongoing construction work on a building, mobilized by the local government, and which would have destroyed public space in the Historic Center.
• Demolition of diverse buildings of heritage value was prevented, their recuperation promoted.
• The official project to demolish part of the ancient Rivadavia Hospital was halted.

Basta de Demoler has a network of governmental and non-governmental organizations and persons that could assist.
It likewise has a privileged relation with the Cultural Heritage Commission of the Legislature, to which it has submitted over 90 applications for the listing of buildings of heritage value.

PRESENT SITUATION (OCTOBER 2009)

After the presentation made to the WMW in March 2009, the cultural heritage situation in the Buenos Aires Historic Center has continued to worsen due to a variety of factors.

Although it is true that because of the international crisis, building activities have slowed down, this has not been the case with the real-estate business. According to the official 2009 semester report of the CEDEM*: “Liquid resources which heretofore were outside the system, have now been oriented and continue to be directed towards the purchase of durable property liable to maintain, or even increase, its value in dollars.

In practice this translates into the purchase and subsequent demolition of old buildings showing potential in terms of real-estate, all over the city, and in particular in the central corridor which includes the business area. 

One of the effects has been the radical alteration of the skyline of Plaza de Mayo caused by the towers built in the Puerto Madero district.

On April 23, 2009 the Buenos Aires Legislative enacted Law 3056 under whose terms no building built before 1940 may be demolished or modified unless the CAAP* issues a report to the effects that the building possesses no cultural heritage value whatsoever. We supported this law believing it could be a valuable, albeit temporary, resource to prevent demolitions until such time as a catalog of buildings with architectural heritage value and their respective levels of protection could be completed. The law is in force until December 31, 2010, by which time the catalog should be completed.

However, this law turned out to be a mixed blessing protection. On the one hand, lack of personnel has meant that cataloguing has not progressed at all up until now. On the other hand a veritable avalanche of demolitions has been triggered – many of them downright illegal, others authorized by hasty CAAP* reports, overwhelmed by the demands for a definitive answer. In some cases the CAAP had to report without even having had the chance to visit the buildings in question.
Add to this the evaluation criteria employed by its members, many of which are not specialists in the subject, and who prioritize demolition over conservation.
At the same time the Government of the City of Buenos Aires persists in neglecting to adopt a clear political decision to defend the city’s heritage, acting recklessly upon historic areas, monuments and parks instead. For this reason, Basta de Demoler has had to seek legal protection by means of remedies of “amparo”** to stop the Government of the City of Buenos Aires.

The situation has deteriorated to such an alarming extent that this has received unprecedented press attention. The present nomination, widespread information about it abroad and local repercussion are bound to be of great assistance in setting limits to the indifference, negation, negligence, procrastination and all manner of hindrances we have to contend with when defending the cultural heritage of Buenos Aires.

* CEDEM, Centro de Estudios para el Desarrollo Económico Metropolitano de la Secretaría de Desarrollo Económico
(Center of Studies for Metropolitan Economic Development, Economic Development )

* CAAP, Consejo asesor de Arquitectura Patrimonial, dependiente del Ministerio de Planeamiento Urbano
(Architectural Heritage Advisory Council, depending from the Urban Planning Ministry)

* GCBA, Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires
(Government of the City of Buenos Aires)

** Amparo" is a judicial order for protection of a constitutional right

*** CCABA: Constitución de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires (Constitution of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires.