Some of Latin America’s most creative minds have flocked to the Argentine capital to show off their latest innovations in the arts of industrial and product design.

Until Sunday 26th May, the city of Buenos Aires will host the third annual Feria Puro Diseño, attracting hundreds of designers and vendors to debut their work amongst peers and marvelling design fans.

Quirky gift items at Feria Puro Diseño 2013 (photo: Simon Guerra)

Organisers of the fair say that it “represents the final result of the training, experience, and experimentation” for many designers who work year-round in preparation for the festival. The event not only offers a space for designers to present and sell new inventions and sleek revisions of everyday objects, but also a meeting place in which creative thinkers can express their ideas and experiences as regards product design and challenges of making it in the fields of art and design.

The showcase is the region’s most important design fair, and since its debut in 2011 has brought in over 100,000 visitors each time.

The Indy checked out the affair when doors opened on Tuesday. And, as anticipated, we found that this year’s event is another powerfully diverse and colourful conglomeration of an unimaginable variety of cleverly designed items. Over 300 stands are on exhibit at the ongoing festival, divided into categories: small objects, features, gourmet, clothing, accessories, jewellery, kids’, and representations from different Argentine provinces.

Although fashion designers and stands featuring clothing boutiques are not lacking at the event, they are outnumbered and overshadowed by the plethora of distinctive product designers exhibiting everything from modern furniture to one-of-a-kind ink stamps; from chic pet beds to the ambiguous category of objects referred to as ‘gifts’.

This year, the Feria Puro Diseño is adhering to the general theme of ‘connecting with design’, encouraging guests to come to the fair and experience first-hand some of the latest trends in product design. In the spirit of accessing and relating to design, a series of ‘real connections’, or mini-conferences, will be held throughout the festival for budding designers and fans. Upcoming topics include designing global brands in localised contexts and selling products online.

Designers exhibit everything from furniture to original takes on every-day objects (photo: Simon Guerra)

Several governmental offices are also taking part in this year’s festivities. For example, the Ministry of Social Development is showcasing several product developers whose works comprise a part of larger environmental and social causes like textile recycling, micro financing in rural communities, and gardening for kids in the city. The office aims to foment social responsibility and awareness of pressing issues by uplifting socially conscious designers.

Other participants include gourmet food and coffee vendors and representatives from local art and design schools.

As The Indy browsed through the endless tables of original, unique works on the opening day of the design fair, a couple of locales grabbed our attention.

First off was the impressive array of eccentric furniture and alternative storage spaces that designers had on display, most often either juxtaposing traditional materials in pieces with a modern design or new-age resources with conventional forms. And then there were the pieces that combined both alternative materials with new designs, like an artistically shaped table made of wood from salvaged wine barrels by Carlos Obregón and a translucent pillowcase branded with a philosophical quote about dreams and filled with sawdust, presented by the INTI Observatorio de Tendencias.

One such object designer was ‘brick’ creator Clara Wall. Along with her business partner, Wall builds storage pieces that resemble the shape of a cement block -rectangular with two square openings in the middle. Wall’s pieces are constructed several times larger than actual cement blocks and are covered in fabric for home storage. The designer-entrepreneur explained that the idea is to repeat the figure of the functional and decorative pieces and offer different coverings to match distinctive tastes.

Another highlight at the Feria Puro Diseño is the socially conscious work of cartonero cooperative Amanecer de los Cartoneros. The cooperative is part of the Movimiento de Trabajadores Excluidos (MTE) of the greater Confederación de Trabajadores de la Economia Popular (CTEP) and works with groups of urban recyclers throughout Latin America.

The organisation of cartoneros crafts household objects – like lampshades, stools, and toys – solely from recycled cardboard. Cooperative leader Sergio Sánchez said that the group creates these new products so that the discarded material might be revived to serve a new purpose. The endeavour is also meaningful for the cartoneros who gather materials, design, and create the objects in what Sánchez describes as a project which “for our cartonero family … is really one of social inclusion and a way in which we can move forward.” Amanecer de los Cartoneros hopes that the project will evolve into a fulltime business in the future and aims to pass on everything its members have learned, from design techniques to business strategy, to the younger recyclers.

Cartonero cooperative Amanecer de los Cartoneros makes objects from recycled cardboard (photo: Simon Guerra)

A final standout design group at this year’s fair is Omnipresentes, a group of young creators who give everyday items an interesting twist. This Argentine design team envisions a product concept, draws up a design, and follows production through to the end. According to group member Franco Rivero, product ideas (like their specially-designed key that opens beer bottles and coffee mug that covers the drinker’s nose with a ceramic pig snout) develop by brainstorming alternative ways for solving everyday tasks in a clever manner. Omnipresentes sees everyday objects as something that can “provide your daily dose of creativity,” and aims to surprise consumers “day to day – by moving you, stealing a smile, or simply grabbing your attention.”

Many more talented industrial and product designers have set up shop at the event, showcasing everything from exquisite and refined household items to silly and rather kitschy random objects -all of which offer some sort of distinguishing flair.

The Feria Puro Diseño runs from 21-26th May between 1pm-10pm. The fair is located at La Rural exhibition hall at Av. Sarmiento 2704 near Plaza Italia. Entrance is $35. For more information visit the website, email info@feriapurodiseno.com.ar, or call +54-11 4346-0155.

Azucar Mag (image courtesy of 1de Oro)

Uno de Orois a project run by two young creative artists Teko and Tay. It aims to launch an innovative design studio with a variety of product lines.

Teko and Tay have been working together for over a year and have already launched several products as designers and illustrators. Azucar Mag, for example, is a digital magazine for smartphones and tablets, and one of their main projects, already gathering over 500 readers. The magazine is free and contains creative visual content. ‘Banquetas coquetas’, meanwhile, are the painted banquettes used as seats and spaces to store things.

Besides their unique materials, Teko and Tay also offer workshops for beginners and advanced designers. Workshops will focus on digital painting (using a tablet wacom) and papertoys.
Both artists live and work in a small studio in the barrio of Colegiales. The studio speaks for itself: first you see plenty of gorgeous paintings all over the walls, then you notice a few objects on their production phase and at last a few colourful banquettes. “We both love our work and don’t have ‘normal’ hours from 9am to 6pm,” says Tay about their professional lifestyle. The pair met over three years ago, when they worked in the same company. Soon they took a decision to work together, despite the risks and challenges of being self-employed.

“We enjoy spending time on our projects, and sometimes the best ideas come when we less expect them,” say both artists at the same time. For instance, the name Uno de Oro has a special story. Teko was walking down the street in Colegiales and found a golden Tarot card and the number one. He interpreted it as luck and took the card as a symbol and a name for the new studio. Azucar Mag was their first and biggest project which gathered a lot of support from fellow artists. “We couldn’t believe so many people were excited to participate somehow in this project,” Teko adds with a smile. “We still didn’t know what the whole idea would look like, but have already been approached by several people and their offers,” Tay recalls.

“We don’t want to be just one more design studio in Buenos Aires. Our goal is to be an innovative lab which products are accessible to large number of people,” Teko affirms. As an example, he talks about street art and names a few murals done by both artists. Currently, both Teko and Tay are presenting their projects as part of their own exhibitions or at design-related events. For instance, this Friday, 2nd November, they launch the second edition of Azucar Mag in Galeria Patio del Liceo at 7pm. “It’s very important to do what you love and focus on things that you can do best. Once you find yourself, share your art with as many people as possible,” says Teko. These two sentences describe best the working philosophy of the founders of Uno de Oro.

Teko and Tay approached Ideame platform as it permits more people to participate collectively in funding their project. The artists plan to spend their first funds on printing digital materials and logistical arrangements for the magazine and workshops.

To support this project on crowd-funding platform Idea.Me, click here

Sustainable Fashion has become somewhat of an elusive concept in the past few years. Is it fair-trade? Is it organic? Recycled? Slow? Green? With such broad language, how do we know exactly what we’re buying? What we do know is the conversation has brought much attention to the not just the “what” of design materials but the “how” of design processes – buying, trading, making and selling.

Argentina, eager to join in the conversation, has suddenly found itself bursting at the seams with eco-conscious fashion designers expressing their talent through endless mediums. From sustainable knits to recycled fabrics, not to mention traditional artisans hand-crafting their goods which inherently fit the green profile, eco-minded shoppers have plenty to choose from without compromising values or quality. The following ten eco-designers in Argentina and their creations top the list.

1. Sustainable knits produced in Toba indigenous community

Sustainable knits produced in Toba indigenous community for Agostina Bianci.

Agostina Bianchi Thames 1733, Palermo.

2. Bracelet made from fabric scraps and paper beads made from discarded magazines

Bracelet made from fabric scraps and paper beads made from discarded magazines by Lua Chea.

Lua Chea Borges 2029, Palermo

3. ‘Bolso Pescador’ Shoulder Bag made from aluminum can tops, $868

Bolso Pescador’ Shoulder Bag made from aluminum can tops by Aluminum.

Aluminium

4. Unisex Scarf made from sustainable knits (100% Llama), $180

Unisex Scarf made from sustainable knits (100% Llama) by Cubreme.

Cubreme, Godoy Cruz 1720, Palermo

5. Wallet made from Tyvek materials, $55

Wallet made from Tyvek materials by Confitte.

Confitte

6. Dress made from recycled neckties

Dress made from recycled neckties by Salve.

Salve

7. SURI sweatshirt hand-printed with water-based inks onto unbleached canvas, $255

SURI sweatshirt hand-printed with water-based inks onto unbleached canvas by Bill et Bill.

Bill et Bill

8. Laptop case made from recycled coffee sacks, from $140

Laptop case made from recycled coffee sacks by Carro.

Carro

9. Rococo necklace made from recycled textiles

Rococo necklace made from recycled textiles by Marina Callis.

Marina Callis

10. Unisex messenger bag made from recycled vinyl, $174

Unisex messenger bag made from recycled vinyl by Baumm.

Baumm

If you’re fashion hungry, and prepared to veer off the well trodden fashion circuit, Buenos Aires provides a veritable sartorial feast, with the city becoming ever more colourful and exciting of late in terms of new creative talent offering a private shopping experience behind closed doors.

The alternative to high-end boutique design, until recently, had always been market style clothes stands, offering cheap substitutes but with increasingly generic design and poor quality confection, and synonymous with the tourist trap of Plaza Serrano. In recent years, the price tags of some of the more established Argentine fashion houses has rocketed. They have allowed the increasingly overinflated peso and the approval of an elite status-hungry Argentine client base go to their heads, yet at a cost. Many local designers are now deemed too pricey, even by international standards, to tempt a tourist into buying.

As a direct result, many young emerging fashion designers or vintage clothing sellers are shunning the crippling rents of commercial spaces, in favour of small flats or studios in unmarked private apartment blocks dotted around the city. The fact that they are still honouring the fashion conscious stomping grounds of Las Cañitas, Palermo and Jardin Botánico in their location choices makes their showrooms accessible both in terms of location and price. They also maintain exclusivity, due to their appointment only policy (in some cases) or address on request protocol.

What makes the experience both so personal and memorable is that the showrooms are generally run by the designers themselves, passionate about what they do and invariably down to earth and buena onda. Regardless of whether you leave laden with bags as you bask in your fleeting Alicia Silverstone ‘Clueless’ moment, or empty handed with a smile from ear to ear (having tried on countless outfits and with an impossible wish-list that eclipses the measurement of your inner thigh) they just want to ensure you leave happy and tell your friends. Social networking (especially ‘feizbuk’) is their most effective advertising platform through word of mouth and recommendation.

Here is a selection of my favourite showrooms:

Blackmamba T-shirts and jackets (courtesy of Blackmamba)

Blackmamba

Run by the adorable Bianca, with her two partners in crime, Rocío and Facundo, this label is a force to be reckoned with. Having just opened the doors of their space to the public in April after an impressively slick inaugural runway show of the A/W 2012 collection, the label is fast developing a name for itself : think beautiful leather design, limited edition pieces and fierce accessories. An eclectic mix of cultural influences with a nod to the early 90s, black magic and pentacles combined with bang up-to-date soft palettes and sharp tailoring make this label stand apart. Highlights are the felt and oh-so-buttery-soft leather mix biker jackets, irresistible one-off amulet jewellery collection (with new and varied stock every visit!) and beautifully handmade chelsea boots and velvet platform wedges. The menswear is a perfect excuse to drag a male friend along or shamelessly style your boyfriend by buying him gifts.

No appointment required. Thames 2110 1 ‘D’. Tues-Fri 11am-9pm, Mon & Sat 2-9pm

Maison Abbey dress and accessories (courtesy of Maison Abbey)

Maison Abbey

Run by two girls from Uruguay, this showroom works as a concession for a number of independent Uruguayan designers as well as local upcoming Argentine designers. There is a cross-section of stock, from meticulously embroidered evening wear to more casual day wear and accessories. Look out for bang on trend lace up platform brogues by Potatoe, Mina Ezqueirra’s incredible red wedges and this season’s must have floor length skirts, in a variety of colours and fabrics. Handbag designer Le Boix’s creations are a reasonable must, with the tartan tote getting a thumbs up for its lush design as well as its price tag.

Gurruchaga 1974, PB 1. Tues-Sat 12-8pm. No appointment required.

Vendaval store (courtesy of Vendaval)

Vendaval

Vendaval is doing things very much DIY. Recycling select vintage garments and adding a fresh approach with subtle alterations, transforming pieces from outmoded to ahead of the trend. Lovers of 90s cultural references makes for a jewellery collection brimming with lusted-after pieces: their shirt collar accessories with crucifixes and mock silver ear cuffs with drop details are hot property.

Call/message to check times/location details.

Bimba Vintage dress and accessories (courtesy of Bimba Vintage)

Bimba Vintage

Bimba is a tangible incarnation of what a dream dressing up box would look like. Jazmín Rodríguez, recent first time mummy and model/presenter, has turned her hand and exquisite eye to this showroom and no detail is overlooked, down to the delectable labels and carefully selected one-off vintage pieces, every one of which has a story to tell. Unlike the mixed bag that ferias americanas offer across the city, Jazmín has a stock that reflects current trends: there are no ‘fillers’ here, you’d be hard pushed not to want to force her to pack up shop and hand over her entire stock to you in one fell swoop. She boasts a celebrity following too: Alexa Chung bought four pieces when she was in BA recently shooting for MTV.

Appointment only. Contact to arrange a time/for location details.

Pippy Miller T-shirts and leggings (courtesy of Pippy Miller)

Pippy Miller

Their first collection has sold out three times over in as many weeks of the showroom being open. But these girls know what they’re doing. Their exuberance for their product is infectious, and with good reason. The full-length, homemade tie-dye skirts, slouchy tops and flared leggings are to die for: in lightweight cotton jersey and especially in this seasons hot colours of mustard and maroon, they look sensational.

Message first to check opening times/location details, but no appointment required. 

Blit Bags (courtesy of Blit Bags)

Blit Bags

These bags are predominantly geared towards the US market, retailing in department stores such as Free People and Fred Seagal, but in Argentina Blit run a modest showroom, selling their trademark baby soft leather bags at trade prices to locals and clued-up tourists. The bags are both stylish and functional, each with a myriad of pockets and compartments for practical needs, while boasting 100% colourful silk linings and vibrant colours.

Appointment needed. Message to arrange a time/for address details.

Miss Bolivia playing at Ciudad Emergente 2012 (Photo: Lautaro Aránguiz)

If you have been craving a plethora of youth culture activities stuffed into a one medium sized area, then Ciudad Emegente held at Cultural Centro Recoleta between 6th-10th June is right up your street.

With more things going on than you can shake your stick at, the “five days which will join the pulse of half a million young people who pass through the festival,” is a clear effort by Buenos Aires City Government to once again desperately show that they’re at the forefront of porteño youth culture.

For the fifth year, Ciudad Emergente will be cramming live bands, DJs, VJs, fashion, poetry, film, street art, street dance, stand up comedy, theatre, digital art and interactive art, into a five day long extravaganza. Basically, everything and anything associated with youth culture as they can possibly get their hands on.

The festival will be showcasing work and holding lectures from some of the most interesting Argentines currently capturing the digital and graphic art worlds. Famous Argentine graphic designer Alejandro Ros, is exhibiting his infamous designs for CD sleeves, and street artist Lucas Grothesque, will be painting the courtyard. The ‘3D’ theatre spectacle Hombre Vertiente will take its viewers on a water odyssey every night at 9pm, which if you haven’t seen already, take the opportunity to see what you’ve been missing for free.

Although the festival is a platform for up and coming Argentine musicians, it is also made some stage time for big name Latin American bands throughout the week. Bomba Estéreo, one of the largest contemporary Colombian bands, are headlining the first night of the festival with their experimental-brand of cumbia will surely be a crowd pleaser.

People at the entrance of Centro Cultural Recoleta during the opening of Ciudad Emergente 2012 (Photo: Lautaro Aránguiz)

At 6pm on Thursday, see Chilean Ana Tijoux, whose mixed roots and political heritage is feistily exhibited in a rap/hip-hop/Latino infusion. Growing up in France after her parents were exiled from Chile during General Pinochet’s dictatorship, she started out rapping in French and Spanish, moving on to form Tiro de Gracia, the best selling Chilean rap group of all time. Expect politically motivated songs such as Shock, which was inspired by the student protests, and an impressive display of MC-ing 1977.

And then there is Miss Bolivia, whose cheeky reggae is probably the best (and only) aggressive, feminist, lesbian, tropi-cumbia rap you’ll hear all year. Watch her sneer and gyrate in her video for Alta Yama, then be impressed by the fact she’s just as likely to rap about the drug epidemic in South America or the beauty of pluralism as she is about ripping her thong off.

Street dancing will be taking centre stage on the Patio del Ajibe everyday at 4.30pm and 6.30pm, with body poppers and break-dancers contorting themselves in a way that would make your grandma blush. For old school b-boying check out Los Fabulosos Bboys or current Campeonato Knock Out competition holders Terrible Style Crew.

When you need to chill out from all the noise and movement, head to Sala 4 for a spot of spoken word. Almost agonisingly young and talented, emerging Argentine poets and lyricists will be reading their work aloud. Magazine lovers can discover the cream of Argentine youth publications in Sala 12, both events running from Thursday to Sunday.

Also catch brilliant music documentaries on in the BAFICI space, featuring “Talihina Sky: The Story of Kings of Leon”, “Leonard Cohen: Live at Isle of White”, Arcade fire’s “Mirror Noir”, and Chemical Brothers’s exhilarating “Don’t Think”. Spanish Film Quiero Tener una Ferretería en Andalucía unveils the lost years of Joe Strummer in Southern Spain, giving a rare insight into the iconic but enigmatic Clash frontman.

If all this isn’t enough, each night at 8.30pm a cutting-edge Argentine fashion designer will be speaking about the aesthetics of their designs.

Phew. The best part? It’s completely free. FREE!!!

Maison Trash

IdeaMe is an online platform, which helps creators, be they inventors, artists, or designers, among others, to finance their projects through crowd funding. Each week, the Indy features and promotes one project every week, with the aim of helping the creators finance and achieve their dreams. This week MaisonTrash.

A new sartorial trend has emerged in recent years, challenging the age-old assumption that high fashion is synonymous with consumer expendability.

Inspired by the LA phenomenon, ‘Trashion Couture’, visual artists Analia Zalazar and Mirtha Bermegui have given Argentine style a creative, ethical makeover. The metallic-shimmering, bejewelled creations that illuminate their Parque Patricios studio, are fashioned entirely from discarded fabrics, hand-sewn and uniquely styled.

Since their meeting in 2005, the creative duo’s quirky brand has continued to evolve in conjunction with their art careers. Zalazar’s medium is primarily collage, while Bermegui is currently involved in digital projects. “They’re different languages,” Zalazar explains, “but they feed off one another, in a constant to-ing and fro-ing.”

Originally intended to be a profitable venture, the garments have acquired a more experimental edge over the seasons, as collaboration continues to spark their creative juices.

“As we see it,” Bermegui says, “our designs are like pictorial compositions….works of art that happen to be portable.”

Despite their plastic art training, fashion runs deep in Zalazar’s and Bermegui’s blood. Both their mothers are couturiers and their art literally begins at home. Rummaging through their mothers’ treasure-chests of cut-off materials, salvaging discarded scraps and fabric ends, they collate and collage their own patchworked designs.

Merging trash with glamour, these chance ‘findings’ are converted into eccentric, often beautiful, occasionally fantastical creations. Lace-trimmed and adorned with colourful buttons and sequins, each creation is unique in form and design, as an antidote to the mass-produced consumer frenzy of the retail industry today.

“We’re seduced by form,” explains Zalazar. “We work with the shape of the material as we find it…it is this form that inspires us and motivates us to create. The form is spontaneous but we then replicate so that it becomes a series.”

They are certainly whimsical creations and, by the same token, Bermegui concedes, they are also “provocative statements that are not for everyone.” In their work, art, rather than the body, is the premise of design.

For the immediate future, their primary aim is to gain exposure and exhibit their work to a broader audience: which is where Ideame comes in. Having been asked to participate in Feria de Puro Diseño in June, Bermegui and Zalazar seek financial assistance so as to create a stand to exhibit their designs. The fair will serve as a “pilot test,” a platform from whim to establish themselves in the fashion world. If all goes to plan, the next step will be to open a boutique, the location of which is currently a matter of much discussion.

IdeaMe is an online platform, which helps creators, be they inventors, artists, or designers, among others, to finance their projects through crowd funding. The Indy features and promotes one project every week, with the aim of helping the creators finance and achieve their dreams.

Jewelry collection by Joyas Punto Eme (courtesy of JPE)

For this week’s project we have chosen Joyas Punto Eme, created by 24-year-old Melanie Terbalka. Having dreamed of creating a jewellery line for years, she launched Joyas Punto Eme a year ago. Gaining enough funding from the IdeaMe platform would allow her to carry out her Autumn/Winter 2012 collection as well as showcase her jewellery – old and new – at some of the most important design markets in the country.

A graduate of Visual Arts and Culture, Terbalka has been studying Jewellery design for four years. She designs and creates every piece of jewellery she sells. Her pieces are handmade, colourful, unique and delicate. The line’s current designs are intricate and include large necklaces made using a crocheting technique. Rings are composed of twisting layers of silver and feature small linear patterns, while earrings vary from colourful and dramatic to small and dainty.

Terbalka doesn’t cite any particular influence on her designs, but notes the importance of colour and its power to influence all of the pieces in her collections. “To be able to play with with the interaction of colours, the textures or the materials and how they mix together to create a language is very interesting to me.”

The jewellery on offer is particularly striking and it’s hard to believe that they are all made by one person, such is the diversity of the collection. The pieces feel undeniably modern, and while there may not be a direct influence, they also retain a certain Andean essence, through the different mixes of materials and colours.

The jewellery is made out of real silver and Terbalka sources the other materials herself, resulting in high quality pieces that you are unlikely to find elsewhere or in a shop. “I think it’s really important that the primary material is a good quality, because it means a lot for the development and creation of the piece as well as creating an object that is visually attractive.”

Earring by Joyas Punto Eme (courtesy of JPE)

The main concept behind Joyas Punto Eme is that the line should be constantly developing and evolving, which is achieved through disctinct changes between the collections. “It’s important to me to be in constant change, creating high quality, innovative pieces that people haven’t seen before.” The ‘Fluid Collection’ for example focused on the union of two separate materials to create one single piece, while other collections have focused on the essence of femininity. So while these pieces may see the designer exploring the use of different colours, her next collection may be entirely different, and will take shape through experimenting with new ideas.

With the presence of more and more chains, jewellery can often be cheap, uninventive and tacky. Independent designers like Terbalka need funding in order to continue producing unique and interesting jewellery that women of all ages can enjoy and treasure.

Gaining funding will allow Terbalka to bring her latest collection to fruition, meaning she can continue doing something she loves on a daily basis. “It’s very important to me that the project is successful, because this is what I love to do, and I hope that comes through in all of the different collections,” she says.

“There’s a lot of work that goes into everything I make. Dedication and love are important. To be able to what you love every day is the most rewarding this there is!”

As an extra incentive, Terbalka is offering those that contribute to Joyas Punto Eme a gift, and each can choose a piece of jewellery from the new collection.

Diagnoal Norte Cupola (Photo: Beatrice Murch)

With its low buildings, eye-level graffiti, and outward sprawl into the provincia, Buenos Aires is often thought of as a “horizontal city”. In at least one respect, however, that impression merits modification. Buenos Aires is the South American city with the greatest number of dome-shaped roofs, or cupolas. About 300 can be found scattered throughout the capital in eccentric, beautiful, and seemingly infinite variations—from the heaven-stretching peak on San Martín and Diagonal Norte reinforcing the strong line of the “diagonal”; to the artillery-like projection set atop the blades of the now-defunct Confitería del Molino on Rivadavia and Callao; to the oval mirrors and intricate metalwork of the cathedral on Ayacucho and Rivadavia with its inscription in Catalán “No hi ha somnis impossible” (“There are no impossible dreams”); to the enormous mint half-globe of the Congreso building mooring Microcentro; to the double crowns of the Art Nouveau-style Otto Wulf building on Belgrano and Perú built by the eighth viceroy of Río de la Plata to house his 16 children.

A few of these cup-shaped roofs are in prominent locations, but many are not. They tend to top otherwise unremarkable buildings—walking briskly down an obscure side street, a viewer might miss one entirely if he or she chances not to look up. Whether one is conscious of them or not, however, the cupolas affect the skyline—and personality—of the city. Those interested in the social aspect of architecture might thus ask: Are these structures simply yet another eclectic urban element, or do they possess some greater significance?

The obvious place to begin an investigation would be the city’s many libraries. But a comb through the catalogues turns up disappointingly little—there is one book in the Biblioteca Nacional (notes on the aesthetics of the Immaculate Conception church in Belgrano), and nothing relevant in the Biblioteca del Congreso. Search results in the Universidad de Buenos Aires’ Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo: 0. Nor do the cúpulas necessarily draw the attention of tourists, who tend to register them only subconsciously as they chase down more attention-grabbing attractions.

Looking at the work of artists native to the city and familiar with its landscapes yields more fruitful (and colorful) results. Photographer Julio Fernández spent a year taking pictures of the cupolas from different angles and at different times of day; he’s found a reception in cultural centres around the country. Carlos Rios paints the cupolas in soft, impressionistic colours, as part of a quasi-phenomenological architectural project; for him, they have a “cosmic significance” in their “analogical relationship between the macrocosmos and the microcosmos, i.e. their reference to both the world and individual man.” And although it was a Chilean, Ángel Cruchaga Santa Maria, who wrote perhaps the most well-known traditional poem using the cupola as metaphor (“Es mi corazón como una cúpula / llena de cantos…”), Gustavo Cerati of the Argentine band Soda Stereo gives them a dark, majestic treatment in his 1988 track ‘Lo Que Sangra (La Cúpula)’.

No Hi Ha Somnis Impossibles - This building on Av. Rivadavia (at Ayacucho) was built in 1907 by Argentine architect Eduardo Rodríguez Ortega. He also designed the Palacio de los Lirios just down the street on Av Rivadavia. Both buildings have many detailes inspired by Gaudí. (Photo: Beatrice Murch)

In most of this art, the cúpula is treated in one way—as a form worth artistic consideration simply because of its beauty, as an “ideal” subject like a landscape or flower. If there is any thought behind its selection at all, it is the idea that the cupola is a crystallisation of the “romantic spirit” of the city and of the architects who built it. To quote the material promoting Fernández’ photography exhibition: “Those who constructed the city were able [with cupolas] to give expression to the romantic spirit of the landscape, in addition to brilliantly endowing it with a magnificent work of architecture.”

This idea of a “romantic spirit” is rather misguided. Nearly all of the cupolas are remnants of the 19th and 20th century immigrant waves, when French, German, Italian, and Belgian architects began to use materials such as iron and zinc rather than the previously-favored brick and wood, and imported aesthetic ideals such as the dome rather than adopting the simpler Rioplatense style. Most were built as commissions for the bourgeois Argentine upper classes. If there was any “romance” in the construction, it referred not to the landscape or the architects, but to the vision those ordering the buildings had of themselves.

In this century the construction of cúpulas has for all intents and purposes come to a standstill. But in the ’50s and ’60s their presence in the city served as a continuous reminder that an alternative existed to the modish functionalism of ‘Latin American Brutalism’, with its cost-effective repetition, prefab parts, and rhetoric of decent living standards for the masses instead of singular luxury. (An excellent example of this “box within a box” architecture in Buenos Aires is the Banco de Londres y América del Sur.)

Contrast this with the dome, which like the medieval gothic arch unapologetically projects grandeur, aiming to lift the viewer out from the humdrum of the everyday. In the case of churches, this means toward God—but the dome’s aura of nobility has also made it a favored choice for government buildings, and a symbol of earthly power. Indeed, the Spanish word for cupola—“cúpula”—possesses the secondary meaning of political, military, or business leadership; examples provided by the translation website WordReference are “la ~ del partido“, the party leadership; “la ~ militar“, the leaders of the armed forces; and “la ~ de la empresa“, the upper echelons of a company.

In the barrio Flores, a triple set of cupolas (one belonging to the basílica, two to the Banco de la Nación Argentina) loom over the plaza—luxury and commanding heights on one side of the Av. Rivadavia, homelessness and insecurity on the other. There’s nothing terribly new about the contrast. One might remember the roots of the word “domus”—in ancient Rome, the elite often lived in elaborate, cupola-topped marble residences, while the lower and middle classes lived in crowded flats called “insulae”. The two types of homes were often found intermingled on the very same street.

Otto Wulf building at Belgrano and Peru (Photo: Beatrice Murch)

The false “romance of the cúpula” in the city may not be entirely negative. It has provided an impetus, even if uncritical or unconscious, for the restoration of a number of deteriorating domes like the Otto Wulf building, which have suffered from the effects of weather or time. The push is necessary: the government hasn’t been known to restore old edifices without pressure, and in recent years, in the absence of serious opposition, it has torn down a number of historically valuable sites. (Something grassroots organisations like Basta de Demoler have sprung up to prevent.) Despite their complicated past, the majority of the cúpulas are genuinely beautiful, and should be not only restored but promoted as touristic attractions.

To truly be effective, however, the process of advocacy needs to go hand-in-hand with reevaluation. Gothic churches were once considered a mere relic of the Dark Ages, and even a threat; their defenders were thus forced to turn out not simply nostalgic paeans but also arguments explaining why the buildings were not simply petrified relics of a dead past. A host of architectural critics in Buenos Aires today write on a range of topics, from Beatriz Sarlo’s analysis of architectural reification and the possibilities for reinvention (in a study of the shopping mall), to the attempts of Enrico Tedeschi to theorize the spiritual possibilities of architecture in the midst of secular urban life. These are possible starting points—the cúpula awaits its critic.

IdeaMe is an online platform, which helps creators, be they inventors, artists, or designers, among others, to finance their projects through crowd funding. The Indy features and promotes one project every week, with the aim of helping the creators finance and achieve their dreams.

This week’s Ideame selection is ‘En Construcción’ (In Construction), Buenos Aires’ maiden contemporary jewellery symposium that is to be held from 29th March to 1st April. The artists who attend will be able to display and possibly sell their quirky, eccentric and unorthodox pieces that may or may not be ready to pair with your favorite belt.

“It’s one part jewellery one part art,” said Francisca Kewitel, a professor in the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism at UBA who is managing the Buenos Aires leg of the symposium. “I typically create very large installations these days.”

AIRE by Francisca Kweitel (Photo courtesy of the artist)

One of her latest pieces is pearl necklace on steroids of sorts; strung with glowing white orbs about “three metres long that envelopes my shoulders.”

Similar exhibitions that take a step away from traditional gold and diamonds have already taken place elsewhere in Latin America to high acclaim.

“The first one was held in Mexico in 2010,” said Kewitel. “It was very large, very important, and drew a lot of people.” A subsequent show was held in Chile.

Despite the success of previous events, Kewitel said that contemporary jewellery as an art form is still finding its footing in Latin America. The exhibition was borne of the gap in institutional support in training and production, and virtually no exhibition space or research exists in the arena.  The namesake, ‘En Construcción’ represents the stage at which contemporary jewellery is now being recognised as its own artistic entity in areas of Latin America.

The upcoming exhibition will hold workshops, exhibits and various activities, and be a forum for discussion and interpretation. Kewitel said that work is about “unique artistic and conceptual objects that are not meant for commercialisation.”

The four artists scheduled to lead the workshops span the globe, and are considered at the top of their fields. The forums engender intense discussion and self-discovery, lasting for eight hours a day for three to four days.

'Massa confussa' by Ruudt Peters (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Ruudt Peters, currently a professor at Alchimia Contemporary Jewellery School in Italy, will lead an interactive discussion on “air,” in which participants will learn to translate their own personal space into a new freedom and spirit of creativity. Each workshop will hold 10 to 16 artists, jewellers, designers and design students, and may be held in either English or Spanish.

The exhibition is set to go, and donations collected from Ideame will help to fund videos, photos and other documentation of the event that will support research and institutional support in the future.

By the train station at Retiro, in the south of barrio Flores, flowering in the provinces in the partidos of Vincente Lopez, San Martín, and Avellaneda – everywhere, as the Argentines say – are the slums of the villa miseria, the residences stacked up precariously one above the other. The air is a mixture of dust and car exhaust; the music is a variation on the cumbia of Flor de Piedra or Amar Azul; just a few blocks from the chain stores on the main street, it’s not uncommon to see a horsecart or stray dog.

The man known as Le Corbusier (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

When in October 1929 the Swiss architect Le Corbusier visited Buenos Aires to deliver a series of lectures, his career was already well on its way in Europe. But the city captivated him, as much for its beauty as for the challenges it presented: “Buenos Aires, southern capital of the new world, gigantic aglomeration of insatiable energy, is a city in error, in paradox, a city that has not a new but an old spirit.” Such an old spirit in a relatively young city was, to him, undesirable. It meant Buenos Aires was going the way of historical European cities like Paris – not just in charm but in dirtiness, industrial sprawl, and unromantic poverty.

But Buenos Aires had in place all the natural elements to become a sleek modern city, Le Corbusier thought. Something wonderful could be carved out from its “sea and port, the magnificent vegetation of the park in Palermo, the wide blue Argentine sky”. And so he set about putting his particular architectural vision to work, attempting to design a city to his ideals of “space, light, and order”. He conceived of skyscrapers in the south of the city, a grand new highway cutting through it laterally, and the relocation of an airport, among other large changes.

None of these plans would come to fruition. The government planning commission was suspicious of a foreign architect. Even if he had garnered political support, it’s not clear that Le Corbusier’s solutions – which would entail tearing down existing buildings to erect new streets, and uprooting traditional arrangements wholesale to start afresh – were at all the right answer. They failed to address the large immigrant population, mostly Italians and Spaniards, who had crowded into Buenos Aires in the late 19th century and were now an established, albeit lower class, part of the city. Moreover, if effected, his plans would ghettoize or eliminate the villas as part of the project of revitalization.

For the modern urban Argentine architect, the themes tackled by Le Corbusier (referred to affectionately as “Lecorbu”) are still worth confronting, even if the answers differ. How should a city accommodate a massive, ever-growing populace? Is it possible to plan on a large scale the conditions for an improved quality of life, without excessive cost or stultifying uniformity? Does such a thing as “modern” architecture even exist, and, if so, what does it look like?

A site of possibility

To understand Le Corbusier’s ideas, it’s worth turning to his own theoretical writings, of which there are many. (He was a prolific self-mythologizer.) His essays read as simultaneous manifestos and justifications; in content, too, they swing wildly – veering, often within the same piece, between what are commonly thought of as “left” and “right” wing views.

Le Corbusier's vision of a "vertical city" in Marseilles, France (Photo: Dom Dada)

Le Corbusier writes in a cold, detached tone, doing little to dislodge the negative stereotype of him as the man who loved planning too much. His name can invoke endless rows of identical apartment blocks (his work inspired the Soviet constructivists); cities so precisely designed for “moral hygiene” that they inhibit individual movement and freedom; an obsession with technology and its capacities for mass reproduction. “Machines for living” Le Corbusier termed his houses; “cold and suffocating” wrote locals in one of his project evaluations. He has been accused of being both incompetent and power-hungry.

It’s true that Le Corbusier recognised the importance of high-level support for his plans, and flirted with right-wing syndicalism and central planning. But his attention to power and materials arose from an awareness of the challenges of the profession. For Le Corbusier, architecture was an undeniable art form, but also a very peculiar one. It required constant collaboration and compromise with others – with the team of sub-architects, with the builders who constructed the edifice, with the zoning officials who authorised the site, with the individuals and organisations who financed the projects. The solitary writer or painter could easily start on an avant-garde work and implement experimental ideas in practice. The architect with similar ambitions faced hurdles from the start.

But the forced social character of Le Corbusier’s work also led him in a different direction – one promoting social betterment, not necessarily hand-in-hand with authoritarian views. He embraced the possibilities of architecture as a tool for equality and social change, for architecture, more than any other art, had the power to physically transform man’s relationship with his environment.

Wishing to hear what Le Corbusier himself had to say on these matters, the Asociación Amigos del Arte – a group of Argentine intellectuals including Victoria Ocampo, María Rosa Oliver, González Garaño, Silvina Bullrich, and Susana Rinaldini – invited him to fly down to Argentina and speak.

Tension and pressure

Villa Ocampo (Photo: Beatrice Murch)

When Le Corbusier’s boat docked in Buenos Aires, Ocampo was waiting for him at the port. She had taken an interest in his work; and after the last conference, she invited him and other conference members to her house, where Azucena Maizani y Sofía Bozán sang tangos. The evening did not go well. When Ocampo asked if Le Corbusier liked the music, he replied, inexplicably: “I passionately love Turkish military marches, because from very far off one can hear the bass drum.” Ocampo had already started to see him as Eurocentric and arrogant (he had proposed to her a habitation with a splash pool for a lover, which she rejected); the strained relationship between the two now only soured further.

It wasn’t only with Ocampo – who represented the Argentine elite – that Le Corbusier began to cross swords. He also argued with other conference representatives, who found fault with his plans for the city. Le Corbusier’s goal had always been efficiency: Efficiency was what had marked his controversial ‘Plan Voisin’ for Paris four years before, which would have bulldozed miles of richly varied (though also winding, dirty, and poverty-stricken) neighbourhoods in the city centre and replaced them with linear streets and sleek buildings. And efficiency was what marked his favourite materials – glass, steel, and ferroconcrete not only enabled a more streamlined technological aesthetic than brick, but were also cheaper and easier to produce.

That’s what made a newspaper editorial written by the US writer Waldo Frank – another invitee – sting so badly. Le Corbusier’s plans were monstrous and superfluous, he wrote, “not the aesthetic realization of an ideal, but temples erected to the American gods of the age of instinct, of power.” They were, in other words, not efficient at all – were, rather, needlessly grandiose and overly infatuated with technology. The Argentine government at the time, with its significant conservative opposition (Le Corbusier arrived the month of the Wall Street Crash, and a few months before Uriburu’s military coup) stonewalled his ambitious and expensive attempts to redesign Buenos Aires. Le Corbusier left the city unhappy at the polite but distinctly chilly reception of his plans.

The architect's later, more organic work in a chapel in Ronchamp, France (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

After the conference, Le Corbusier went on to visit La Plata, San Antonio de Areco, and Mar del Plata, as well as Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, and Asunción (the last in a plane piloted by Antoine de St. Exupéry). The Río Paraná and the vast unpeopled Argentine landscapes bordering Paraguay overwhelmed him, and influenced him to think seriously about the relationship between human construction and landscape, and the possibility of a more organic architecture.

Nor did Le Corbusier’s involvement with Argentina end there. In 1938 two Argentine architects, Juan Kurchan and Jorge Ferrari Hardoy, came to his workshop in Paris with the intention of creating a ‘Master Plan’for Buenos Aires. Working closely with Le Corbusier, they completed the plan in twelve months. A decade later, their ideas for collective housing would be implemented by the Perón government.

In the 1940 introduction to the plan, however, Le Corbusier’s mixed feelings toward Buenos Aires are still clear. “In 1929, when I visited, I called it The City Without Hopes,” he wrote. Admittedly, today it is “one of the great capitals of the world. A formidable destiny awaits it.” Still, “Buenos Aires, the destined city in South America, is sicker than ever. Precisely because it has natural health and youth, it has suffered in its lightning growth the accelerated assault of its errors.”

Legacy

Despite the time he spent in theory and travel, Le Corbusier himself supervised only one architectural work in Latin America – the Casa Curutchet in La Plata, Argentina, one hour from the capital.

Casa Curutchet in La Plata (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

It is a small building, and a relatively minor example of his work. It was, in fact, almost an afterthought, built in 1949 to 1953 under Perón, nearly 20 years after his Buenos Aires lectures. The building faced constant challenges throughout the construction process, due to the relatively constricted space. Still, Le Corbusier was proud of it, and its architectural features – such as a brise soleil to keep out the harsh summer sun, and concrete stilts to raise the building up – are representative examples of his mature style.

Yet his importance of Le Corbusier for Latin America was much greater than a single house. Hardly a shadow figure, he makes up a real part of the Argentine historical memory. Driving through the suburb of Malvinas Argentinas, in Buenos Aires province, you’ll come across a street bearing his name. More significantly, as Carolina Muzi notes in an article for Clarín, many of Le Corbusier’s proposed changes were in fact later implemented:

“The skyscrapers that Le Corbusier proposed for the riverbank finally flourished in Puerto Madero. The Ciudad Universitaria today occupies the space he had planned for it in 1938. The proposed Avenida Norte-Sur was completed between Retiro and Constitución. A crystal tower was added to the Congreso building. A network of highways was constructed just as Le Corbusier had planned. And the relocation of the Aeroparque to the coast of Avellaneda – revived in 1995 by politicians – had already been proposed by Le Corbusier in 1929 and 1938. None of this seems like chance.”

These innovations – it is hard to overstate how radical they are – clearly bear Le Corbusier’s stamp, even if he wasn’t always explicitly invoked.

More than the architecture itself, the “spirit” of Le Corbusier, however interpreted, is still distinctly present. Students at the Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo of the Universidad de Buenos Aires, taking a cue from Le Corbusier, are currently engaged in a project to redesign the villas, opening up the space to decrease cramped and crowded conditions, and in doing so improve the quality of life. Le Corbusier continues to feature prominently on the classroom syllabus.

Le Corbusier may not have left many material traces in Argentina, and it remains ambiguous whether his plans were ideal for 1930s Buenos Aires. But in his grand desire to reinvent and improve the city, he remains, here, an important touchstone. As one of his admirers has said of him: “Good architecture cannot force people to live together in harmony. Bad architecture can certainly prevent them from doing so.”