Cliché of Buenos Aires

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Speaking of clichés, media and travel industry have created an image of Argentina and Buenos Aires in particular that consists mainly of tango, great food, great wine, great architecture, and great people. They tend to blank out all the not-so-nice parts of the city and the country. This is as unrealistic as expecting a crocodile to turn vegetarian. For many Argentines this city is a place to struggle to survive just like any other city in the world. The problem is universal: too much to die on but too little to live on. So, when you want to look behind all those clichés you have to leave the typical tourist routes. Don't be afraid. You will be surprised!

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Doorway of Palacio Paz in Buenos Aires

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The Palacio Paz near the Plaza San Martín in Retiro is just amazing. The magnificent building was commissioned in 1902 by José C. Paz, the founder of "La Prensa". La Prensa is a major daily newspaper based in Buenos Aires. The French architect Louis Sortais designed and erected Paz' mansion which was completed in 1914. Clearly, this mansion was build to impress visitors and locals alike reflecting the owner's power and wealth. Back then, it was the largest private residence in whole Argentina with unimaginable 12,000 sq meters. Justifiably, this building is considered one of the most beautiful palaces in Buenos Aires. It is full of beautiful art work and gorgeously decorated halls and rooms. Today it is housing the Círculo Militar, a veterans' organization.

The first of the month has arrived, and it is City Daily Photo Theme Day. November 2009 theme day is Doorways. If you like to see other interpretations of this subject click here to view thumbnails for all participants.

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O is for Once

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Buenos Aires has officially 48 community districts. Many of them are further subdivided into sub-barrios whose names often reflect famous buildings in these subzones. Once is one of these rather unoffical neighborhoods. It is basically a part of the Balvanera barrio but hardly anyone uses this denomination. Once's namesake is the massive Once de Septiembre train station. The Spanish word once means "eleven". The train station was named after Buenos Aires' rebellion against the Federal government on September 11, 1852. So don't get confused, it has nothing to do with the 9/11 terrorists attacks in the US.

Enjoy even more ABC Wednesday posts from around the world! Click here.

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M is for Montevideo

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I could have easily told you this building is in Buenos Aires, but it is not. It's in Montevideo, the charming Uruguayan neighbor city across the River Plate. The city is filled with beautiful architecture that is remarkably similar to that of Buenos Aires. This building caught my eyes because it was strikingly different from the others with its blue facade, the round windows, and these suspicious red logo signs. Well, as it turns out, I stepped right into the twilight zone, the 'dark side' of Montevideo. The Club de Paris is apparently a table dance bar and strip club. Yikes! Seems men have the same simple needs all over the world.

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Old Facade in Decay in San Telmo

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San Telmo is the smallest but probably the most picturesque and historic part of Buenos Aires. Here you will find a large number of old buildings dating from colonial times. Some of them are in a pretty good condition while others are going to seed. The barrio was once the city's upper-class district but yellow fever had driven away most of the former denizens in 1871. Some of the old mansions can tell you stories of a time long gone just by the fading elegance of their facades. I love this old building in the picture in particular for its decaying charm and fading beauty.

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Mosaic Reflection on an Office Building

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Modern high-tech architecture consists mainly of steel and glass. Glass is a great surface material and an ideal source for special effects like the distorted reflection in the picture. Reflection is happening when light intersects with a change in material such as air to glass. While walking through Buenos Aires, I was captivated by the effect produced by the mirror-like cladding of glass on the side of this office building. It looked like a canvas of glass panels on which a mosaic was created. This distorted mosaic is what gives these literally blank faceless facades a rather individual touch.

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Flying Flags of Argentina and Buenos Aires

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The Buenos Aires city flag bears the city coat of arms on a white banner. The original design of the coat of arms dates back to 1580 when it was created by the Spaniard Don Juan de Garay, the city's second founder. The city coat of arms consists of a crowned black full-fledged eagle holding the red cross of Calatrava in his right leg. At his feet are four little eaglets symbolizing the four settlements that were to be founded in the Río de la Plata colony according to an agreement between the Conquistador Juan Ortiz de Zárate and the Spanish King Philip II. Especially noteworthy are two oddities in the design. First, the eagle looks to his left whereas the default position for heraldic animals is right from the shield-bearer's point of view. Second, the eagle wears the royal crown which was a reserved symbol only for the highest nobility. Despite the alleged errors the coat of arms was finally officially approved in 1596.

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Behind the Scenes - Teatro Solís in Montevideo

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Not only Buenos Aires but also Montevideo, on the other side of the Río de la Plata, has a great opera house. The Teatro Solís is one of the major cultural attractions in Uruguay's capital. After a fire in 1998 the building had to be closed for comprehensive restoration until 2004. The main focus was put on the re-construction of the backstage area to make the stage and theater technology state-of-the-art. Among many other things, the stage size was increased by 80%, a new orchestra pit was built, the stage house was extended and last but not least a modern thermal conditioning system was added. If you want to convince yourself of the modernizations go backstage and let you take behind the scenes by some English and Spanish speaking Uruguayan students. They will show you around and let you discover the theatre complex and its secrets which ordinary theatre-goers otherwise won't see.

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Argentines Keep 50 Billion US Dollars of Savings under the Mattress

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Argentina is a country with extreme swings in economic performance. Due to the many crises that have shaken the country everyone does his best to take precautions for the next crisis. The gross national savings rate in Argentina has almost doubled since the economic disaster in 2000-2001. It has reached 27% of GDP in 2008 which is one of the highest compared to many other Latin-American countries. For the USA it is 12% of GDP, just to give you a number. But how to save money when people have absolutely no trust in inland banks, nor in the government anymore? While rich people get assistance by American or Swiss bankers with bringing money abroad, the ordinary middle-class Argentinean is hoarding cash in dollar bills under his proverbial mattress. The mound of cash in Argentina is estimated to USD 50 billion, which is about 1,300 dollars per capita. This makes Argentina by far the number one in US dollar bill hoarding nations in the world. The second place goes to Russia with about USD 550 per capita.

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Abasto de Buenos Aires — Shop until You Drop!

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Are you a fan of superlatives — and do you like shopping? Well, then this is the place to go. The Abasto de Buenos Aires shopping center offers you exactly 39,473 sqm sales area to shop until you drop. The mega mall is especially tailor-made for tourists who find great enjoyment in shopping. They even offer free transportation service from your hotel to the mall and back in case you are planning a shopping spree. Customer service is king! The most fascinating aspect to me, however, is the impressive Art Deco facade of the building.

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2 1/2 Room Apartment in Buenos Aires

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Moving into a new apartment can be exciting and adventurous. It requires some research and plenty of patience. When you browse the ads for a new flat you will likely stumble upon the conundrum known as '2 1/2 room apartment'. What the heck does a half room look like? Where is the other half, then? What makes a room a room? You see, this is virtually a philosophical problem. Recently I was walking through the Once neighborhood and guess what I spotted: the 2 1/2 room apartment!

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Teatro Colón’s Ongoing Refurbishment

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The world famous Buenos Aires opera house is under refurbishment for almost 3 years now. It closed in October 2006 and was slated to reopen 18 months later. But now 2009 is almost over and the Columbus Theatre is still closed. Nothing's gone according to plan. The renovations took longer than expected due to financial problems of Buenos Aires. Although the city is in real straits it kept the renovation humming. Anyway, it was announced that the Teatro Colón is scheduled to reopen in 2010. Let's see whether this goal can be met.

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Rusty Iron Beams Left Over

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What has happened to the balconies of this house? Seems loose bricks and rotting concrete had finished them off. Just the bare steel beams remained. The house owner, obviously, is keeping all options open. He neither decided to tear down the steel beams nor to rebuild the balconies. Instead he installed wrought iron railings.

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Estación Constitución - Southern Gateway to Buenos Aires

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The Plaza Constitución is the central travel hub for trains, buses and cabs in the south of Buenos Aires. This makes it one of the busiest areas if suburban traffic is concerned. Everywhere you see Argentineans catching one of the various commuter buses to get into the city's center or to their homes in the suburbs. The pink building is the train and underground station Constitución. It was built in the late 19th century to cope with the increasing suburban traffic due to rising immigration. From here you can travel further south by train to destinations like Mar del Plata and Bahia Blanca, for instance. At day the area is insanely crowded, loud, and at least to some extent chaotic. At night this place is best avoided.

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Edificio Alas in Downtown Buenos Aires

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This office building in Avenida Leandro N. Alem 719 perfectly reflects the architectural style of Early Modernism. Completed in 1950, it was the tallest building in Buenos Aires for almost 50 years. Legend has it that Juan Domingo Perón personally ordered to include a nuclear bunker in the building which he would use in case of war or a coup d'état. But de facto, he never did. Maybe the bunker is yet another urban myth because it doesn't exist nowadays. A bare fact is that in 2009 the Edificio Alas with its 141m (463ft) ranks 20th of the highest buildings in Buenos Aires. Actually, I liked the building on first sight for its futuristic and puristic looks. The Alas Tower could be, as it stands today, from the movie Metropolis or a dystopian fiction novel by George Orwell or Aldous Huxley.

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Buenos Aires Concrete

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Concrete, like everything else, depends on what you make of it. Looking at it objectively, concrete is a compound of cement, water and diverse aggregates. But concrete is more, it is the very material from which our cityscapes are formed. People, however, make a city thrive, not bricks and mortar. A city is an interaction of thousands of social and cultural elements and concrete is its body. As an inevitable fact in today's living reality, concrete is tangible, visible, unavoidable, often repellant but a hard to ignore partner.

Thanks again to the guys from LandingPadBA.com. I took the picture from the rooftop of Jed's apartment building.

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Massive Outdoor Advertising

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Advertising is like alcohol. Ironically, the more you consume, the less you remember. Ads are not necessarily a bad thing, neither is alcohol when consumed appropriately. The wall in the picture, though, serves as a perfect example of an advertising overkill in public areas. You may say that you know what it is like or you've seen worse. And you are right. In fact, we get randomly bombarded with ads all around the clock. Why? Simply because they are increasingly less and less effective.
Beyond sharing the same first letter, alcohol and advertising have another even more important similarity: We get used to it too fast!

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Good Morning Buenos Aires

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Like a ruby sparkling in the morning sun touched by a soft glow of winter light. It was the dawn of a new day, the awakening of a wonderful city. After every night follows a bright day, ready-made to conquer, to enjoy, to fill with meaning. Vivid light was inevitably pouring through the streets and over the rooftops. I couldn't get enough of this delightful spectacle. Me and my camera were desperately busy snapping the fleeing beauty into our memory. The mood was magic. Good morning beautiful!

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Buenos Aires’ Building Boom

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To build or not to build is not always a matter of demand. There is an increasingly high number of newly accomplished buildings popping up on the real estate market of Buenos Aires. I don't want to know how many of these office and apartment buildings will stand empty after completion forming a deserted ghost town. Frankly, there are thousands of people who would and could fill these buildings with life but cannot afford it. I do know these buildings are not projected to make the world a better place, but you can't stop me from dreaming.
Apropos, this isn't a phenomenon that arises only in Argentina. Have you ever heard of the new ghost towns in Spain? Ciudad Valdeluz, for instance, is a completely newly constructed city for approx. 30,000 inhabitants, but has in fact not more than 197 after all. — And it doesn't look like it's going to get any better.

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Rusty House with a Skirted Balcony in La Boca

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This house with the rusty facade is to be found in close proximity to the Estadio Alberto J. Armando. The famous football stadium in the La Boca neighborhood is much better known as "La Bombonera", home of the Boca Juniors. Buenos Aires — well, actually, the entire nation of Argentina — is acknowledged to be extremely football-enthusiastic. The Porteños like to name streets after their beloved football personalities. This street was named after Antonio L. Zolezzi who was a former president of the soccer club Atlético River Plate in 1912 and for the period from 1925 to 1927. Be it as it may, I love the house not only for its rusty charm, but because of the fancy skirt around the balcony.

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