Burning the Inheritance

Sorry, but at times it’s difficult not to be an architect…

The place we stayed in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of San Telmo was pretty interesting. I couldn’t get a construction date but the evidence suggests it was built in the early twentieth century. The street façade (top right) is somewhat traditional but without much ornamentation above the street level.

Like so many of the buildings in this neighborhood and in Central and South America in general, what you see from the street is not necessarily indicative of what lies beyond. In this case, the building behind is a modern design of concrete, steel, and glass that has some definite Bauhaus/Modernist influence.

The apartment itself was pretty simple and basic, but thanks to the open air courtyards and early steel curtain wall, there is tons of daylight despite the depth and height of the building.

The building also featured what had to have been a very early elevator complete with brass cage work and still functioning! The plate steel apartment doors, with their sort of traditional scroll work, were a pretty quirky but interesting feature as well.