Back to Buenos Aires! Not literally… but I just realized I hadn’t reposted a popular series from the previous version of this blog. From 2007 to be exact. Back when my only internet presence was line of sight, I wrote one of the most widely read, English-language blogs about Buenos Aires. While I researched early housing projects in the city, I also began looking up & paying attention. I saw more domes than I’d ever noticed before…
The quest for domes turned into an obsession. As these things do. After photographing & posting hundreds of pics, I selected what I considered the most unique domes in Buenos Aires & made a map. Nothing complicated, & my nascent design knowledge wouldn’t allow for anything fancy either.
In reality, the entire dome search was a way of avoiding other, more important projects & life decisions at the time. 2007 had its complications. But in the end, making this map started me on the path to writing Endless Mile guides… time well spent. Below are small images of the free version of the first map + a 2011 incomplete attempt at redesign:
In the end, the original map transformed into a mini PDF guide for Endless Mile. I still give it away for free, mainly as an example of content & structure for all of my publications. Every visitor should explore one of the most interesting facets of Buenos Aires architecture… & consider it a scavenger hunt while they’re still around! As I say in the guide:
At the end of the 20th century, economic crises & political conflicts far outweighed concerns about architectural conservation & Buenos Aires fell into disrepair. Domes are, by their nature, fragile constructions. When funds disappeared, domes collapsed —never to be recovered.
Despite an economic upswing after 2002, local government turned a cold shoulder to the city’s preservation. Law prohibits the demolition of any building constructed prior to 1941, but remember this is Argentina. Corruption & clandestine demolition are rampant. Citizen watch groups keep a vigilant eye on the city, but even they can miss signs of destruction or decay. Unfortunately, dozens of spectacular domes do not appear in our list because they no longer decorate the skyline. The only record of their existence is a collection of photographs & postcards taken by flâneurs of an earlier era.
With this guidebook, Endless Mile seeks to call attention to one of the defining characteristics of Buenos Aires… in the hope that more people will work to preserve one part of what makes the whole of this city so special.
y las que ya no están…
Thanks to the rise of social media since those original posts, both individuals as well as government organizations can easily share past & present photos of Buenos Aires. Although I’ve left BA behind, whenever I see a picture of a dome that’s no longer standing I get a little nostalgic & miss those long walks around the city.
Most of the images below come from the Twitter account of the Archivo General de la Nación. Can you imagine if these were still around today?
I’ll continue to add photos here as I find them online. Please post your own contributions in the comments below!