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housing for the masses: casa colectiva patricios, 1939

Casa Colectiva Patricios, 77 units • Parque Patricios
24 de Noviembre & Rondeau

The 1930s weren’t good for housing projects in Buenos Aires. No doubt due to worldwide recession, workers had neither the government nor private organizations to look after them. Remember Barrio Rawson was finished in 1934 & the Casa Colectiva América in 1937… only two projects since 1928 is hardly a good track record or very helpful to those in need. By 1939, the program got back on track & two more projects were completed.

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housing for the masses: casa colectiva bernardino rivadavia, 1921

Casa Colectiva Bernardino Rivadavia, 1921 • San Telmo
Defensa 767

Right in the heart of the Sunday street fair in San Telmo is this rather unassuming building. Remember that the CNCB’s first project was an apartment building in Parque Patricios. Then they opted for individual, chalet-style housing. With this project they went back again to the apartment building model. Talk about indecisive:

Buenos Aires, San Telmo, Casa Colectiva Bernardino Rivadavia, 1921-22
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housing for the masses: casa colectiva américa, 1937

Casa Colectiva América, 1937 • San Telmo
Avenida San Juan & Balcarce

I put this series on the back burner a few months ago while doing the dome map & getting the cemetery blog up. Now I feel sufficiently guilty to continue where I left off… the 1930’s. Worldwide economic depression in 1929 & Argentina’s first military coup in 1930 also make this a good moment to start again. Economic & political problems brought social welfare to a halt for most of the decade.

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housing for the masses: ccm purchase

CCM, Barrio Varela-Bonorino, housing for the masses, vivienda social

This is great stuff… in the last week I’ve had 3 different people help me out with posts: Ernesto with San Telmo pics, Gabriel with explaining studying medicine in Argentina, & now Luis. His grandfather was the original owner of one of the CCM houses in the Barrio Varela-Bonorino in Flores (#17 of this series). Luis has been kind enough to share lots of interesting info with me & answer all of my nosy, personal questions 🙂 I asked a lot because I wanted to profile his family & give everyone an idea of the people who originally lived in those neighborhoods as well as some further details about the house itself.

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housing for the masses: barrio tellier-falcón, 1927

Barrio Tellier-Falcón, 1,680 units • Liniers
Lisandro de la Torre & Coronel Ramón Falcón

Better known as the Barrio de las Mil Casas… over 1500 houses built in the space of about 20 city blocks. It seems like the boxes go on forever! Many have been nicely maintained, & modifications remain faithful to the original design. There is a tree-filled plaza to break up the monotony & the neighborhood assembly is located across the street. There was a bit more variety than in other CCM projects, probably due to the sheer quantity of units constructed. It could use more plant life along wider streets, but it seemed like a nice place to live. I really liked the updated green house… yummy.

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housing for the masses: barrio segurola, 1925

Barrio Segurola, 650 units • Floresta
Avenida Segurola & César Diaz

After 9 days of rain, the sun is out again!! It has been stressful for my work schedule, but that’s hardly an issue compared to the 60,000 people who have their homes under water in Santa Fe & Rosario. A couple days ago I donated some non-perishable food items & a few packs of diapers to the Casa de Entre Ríos… it’s like a branch office of the provincial government here in BsAs. I don’t know how they will get donations to those in need, but hopefully there will be some way.

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housing for the masses: barrio emilio mitre, 1923

In post #3 of this series, an important point might easily go unnoticed:

“the national government never desired to be the sole provider of welfare in Argentina. They wanted to develop a model to demonstrate to private investors that housing projects were viable & could benefit everyone.”

All the projects written about thus far were funded either by the Argentine government, union groups or religious donations. Where were those elusive private investors?

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