Vivienda y poder: la sociedad urbana en el Buenos Aires tardocolonial

Abstract

This research is about the housing architectural development in the Rio de la Plata (River Plate) margins at the end of the Colonial Period. Both the Spanish strategy of domination in this area and a geopolitical need drew up the guidelines for the economic growth of this obscure and remote village of the Spanish Empire: “the forgotten village”. There was mass migration, both external and internal, within that context. This generated tension in the urban space as well as in the inner social system. The growing elite demanded increasing shares of commercial participation and power, made an intensive use of the urban land, and generated a new architectural aesthetic expressed in the formal language of the Neoclassicism. All these contributions guide and give theoretical support to another vision of this history. Therefore, in this thesis, they will enrich the research process and facilitate the weaving of the net by considering spatial variables, housing patterns, the use and occupation of the land, and the forms of economic accumulation and identity in its widest meaning. Through housing, we are able to “read” the inhabitants and interpret the houses’ social value.

Keywords

• Buenos Aires
• architecture
• housing
• Colonial period
• symbolic value
• urban growth