It is difficult to forget about the demolition of Clorindo Testa’s Commissariat of Santo Pipó and with it, the demolition of part of the Argentine architecture.
With the objective of addressing issues related to the rescue and protection of the forgotten and deteriorated buildings, the MMM3 (Modern Movement in Missions) of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (UNaM) held an exhibition on October 31 in the locality of A. Del Valle.
The exhibition is part of the 60th anniversary of other works of the architect in the Argentine northeast: the Tourist Paradores, three buildings located in A. del Valle, San Ignacio and San Pedro product of the architects Boris Davinovic, Augusto Gaido, Francisco Rossi and Clorindo Testa.
In 1956, the government of the young province in Misiones proposed a modernizing impulse of its institutions, where architecture and urbanism would be instruments that would manifest with concrete testimonies that desire to place the province in the development plan that the country was elaborating at that moment. National competitions of preliminary projects were called in 4 stages.
The promotion of tourism played a strategic role in the General Plan of Public Works: developing a plan to promote provincial tourism that proposed the construction of motels, inns and a hotel, which would be accompanied by the improvement of the existing road infrastructure. The winners of the contest for tourist inns in the towns of A. Del Valle, San Ignacio and San Pedro were the team of Davinovic, Gaido, Rossi and Testa. 60 years on from the competition, we find the Inns in different degrees of conservation.
Currently, the only one recognized as Municipal Heritage is in San Ignacio. The other two have been left unprotected, despite requests and presentations made by the research teams of the respective Deliberative Councils. The low heritage recognition of these works by the municipal, provincial and community authorities, has made it very difficult to preserve them without the corresponding declaration.
Today the need to address a policy for the protection and preservation of architectural heritage is fundamental. The community must be an active protagonist through raising awareness and campaigns about the works. Only in this way, will consciousness be generated and the buildings can be integrated into the society to which they have always belonged.
Text courtesy of Agustina Basile.
