During the 1970's-1980's was a dreadful period aesthetically here as in many parts of the world. That's when the ugliest, large, rectangular, multi-story apartment blocks appeared that today resemble mass housing projects everywhere else. Thankfully there's not that many areas blighted by those, though you will see them on the drive in from the international airport from the single highway route. Typical that the initial impression for visitors arriving by air is light-industrial areas & the least appealing buildings!
It was in the same decades that much of the 'downtown' CBD area was developed, when the p.h. houses were demolished to make way for skyscrapers full of fluorescent lit offices. This is the part of the city that we use as locations to double visually for many North American & some Continental cities.
Immediately following the financial crisis, savvy developers moved swiftly to snatch up bargain-priced land throughout the city, demolishing many p.h. houses & replacing them with 'sliver-apartment blocks' as they're known locally. Between 6-10 floors high, depending on the building zone of the particular barrio, they have been constructed on the same footprint as those single-story homes of yesteryear. This dictates that the common layout is for 2 narrow apartments per floor, 1 facing the street, the other overlooking surrounding rooftops. The occasional single-story penthouse apartment is usually the only possibility for more than 1 bedroom. Whilst a growing % of these modern, luxury apartments are inhabited by owner-occupants it is far & away the majority scenario that these are 'investment properties', rented to foreigners like us as short-term alternatives to hotel accommodation.
In the areas where the property development has been concentrated there's been an accompanying explosion of bars, cafes, restaurants & boutiques. These are big pedestrian areas so you'll get to walk off your beef, don't worry. These barrios naturally attract the expat crowd therefore you'll find an abundance of languages spoken, commonly including english.
Monday, 7 February 2011
Residential architecture-Pt 2.
Then the merchant class got VERY rich. They brought top French architects to Argentina from Europe for years at a time, to design & supervise construction of their buildings, including their new homes, & new country homes, Town Hall(s), municipal buildings, libraries, museums, social club houses, & eventually entire Parisien style apartment blocks. These buildings are still standing today. The civic buildings are still in use. Many of the private homes are embassies, museums, art galleries, function centres & luxury hotels today.
This is why BA is often referred to as the 'Paris of the South' & why so many tv commercials are shot here as a location, particularly for the French brands. It's this aesthetic richness that is startling to people who're expecting an impoverished Latin American country.
During the same period, the same affluent group of leaders planted an extraordinary amount of trees along each & every street. As Argentina has an abundance of water, these trees are now very tall, very strong & line the streets creating a shady canopy in summer, in every direction you look. Their roots make hell with the sidewalks these days but that's the price Portenos (citizens of BA = port people) are used to paying. Many public fountains were built & formal gardens were established too. Similarly, many of these grand buildings are suffering from maintenance neglect, as a result of the financial crisis in 2001 that rearranged priorities within the municipal budget overnight. It's enough to keep up the annual repainting to eradicate the ubiquitous graffiti! So sad.
This is why BA is often referred to as the 'Paris of the South' & why so many tv commercials are shot here as a location, particularly for the French brands. It's this aesthetic richness that is startling to people who're expecting an impoverished Latin American country.
During the same period, the same affluent group of leaders planted an extraordinary amount of trees along each & every street. As Argentina has an abundance of water, these trees are now very tall, very strong & line the streets creating a shady canopy in summer, in every direction you look. Their roots make hell with the sidewalks these days but that's the price Portenos (citizens of BA = port people) are used to paying. Many public fountains were built & formal gardens were established too. Similarly, many of these grand buildings are suffering from maintenance neglect, as a result of the financial crisis in 2001 that rearranged priorities within the municipal budget overnight. It's enough to keep up the annual repainting to eradicate the ubiquitous graffiti! So sad.
Residential architecture-Pt 1.
It struck me how varied the architecture is here. Rich aesthetically. This is a city of 'human scale' akin to the classical european cities such as Paris & Madrid. Yes there is a modern CBD with skyscraper office towers, but they're in a concentrated section of the city only, down along the river toward the passenger port in Puerto Madero.
The founders of the city did an excellent job of planning the layout on a grid system from the start, allowing for an abundance of parks & plazas at regular intervals.
Initially they had simple dwellings, which were replaced by single story homes, known as "p.h." style (which simply means a property that is horizontal.) They built these solid, single-story stone homes based around a communal central courtyard on narrow (single-width) blocks. There is always an internal pathway along the side of the entire length of the building for access to the multiple apartments contained. These homes are very deep & housed all 3-4 generations of the family together. The edifice usually fronts directly onto the footpath, with Mediterranean-style wooden exterior shutters on the windows, with beautiful, simple wrought-ironwork as a security layer. These houses are scattered throughout the city, many in dire need of repair, particularly their antique plumbing & wiring.
The standard building practice was for 10 foot high ceilings & the floors are always marble, often the large black&white diamond shaped tiles in heavy traffic areas. There's usually a fireplace at either end of the house & an exterior stone staircase leading from the courtyard up to a balustraded rooftop terrace. Up on the terrace is where the clothing was hung to dry in the sunshine year round. Many also have their traditional Argentine stone/brick bar-b-que grill up on the terrace with tables & chairs rather than in the courtyard. The few renovated ones are very expensive as "p.h.'s" are very much in demand. There's no off-street parking area of course from that period, so it's street parking only, 1 car length per house.
Yes they're lovely (or so they seem from the outside) & I'd love to convince 'husband' to just look inside some of the renovated p.h. homes but I think that's going to be near to impossible as he's adamant about not wanting a property without an abundance of light which then narrows the choices way down within the renovated selection :(
The founders of the city did an excellent job of planning the layout on a grid system from the start, allowing for an abundance of parks & plazas at regular intervals.
Initially they had simple dwellings, which were replaced by single story homes, known as "p.h." style (which simply means a property that is horizontal.) They built these solid, single-story stone homes based around a communal central courtyard on narrow (single-width) blocks. There is always an internal pathway along the side of the entire length of the building for access to the multiple apartments contained. These homes are very deep & housed all 3-4 generations of the family together. The edifice usually fronts directly onto the footpath, with Mediterranean-style wooden exterior shutters on the windows, with beautiful, simple wrought-ironwork as a security layer. These houses are scattered throughout the city, many in dire need of repair, particularly their antique plumbing & wiring.
The standard building practice was for 10 foot high ceilings & the floors are always marble, often the large black&white diamond shaped tiles in heavy traffic areas. There's usually a fireplace at either end of the house & an exterior stone staircase leading from the courtyard up to a balustraded rooftop terrace. Up on the terrace is where the clothing was hung to dry in the sunshine year round. Many also have their traditional Argentine stone/brick bar-b-que grill up on the terrace with tables & chairs rather than in the courtyard. The few renovated ones are very expensive as "p.h.'s" are very much in demand. There's no off-street parking area of course from that period, so it's street parking only, 1 car length per house.
Yes they're lovely (or so they seem from the outside) & I'd love to convince 'husband' to just look inside some of the renovated p.h. homes but I think that's going to be near to impossible as he's adamant about not wanting a property without an abundance of light which then narrows the choices way down within the renovated selection :(
Sunday, 6 February 2011
A unique Chinatown.
Everywhere we've ever been, or lived, or known of it's an iron clad guarantee that in Chinatown is where you'll be able to get a meal when everybody else has long gone to bed. The Chinese race have a global reputation for long hours, hard repetitious work, & strong business acumen. Wherever there's an opportunity of potential customers, no matter the time of night, there'll be a restaurant or at least a noodle stand open in Chinatown.
This is why we were shocked to find that here in Argentina, the Chinese do not maintain the same stereotypical business practice as their relatives in far flung locales. Here the asian owner/operator supermarkets actually CLOSE before the general closing time of the local shops!! Chinatown supermarkets & stores close at 8PM; most boutiques close at 9PM; local supermarkets close at 10PM.
The restaurants in Chinatown do stay open after the supermarkets have closed but not after 12 midnight. In a culture here, where the general evening meal happens between 10-11:30pm this seems at complete odds!
By natural conclusion, we figured that (again stereotypically) the Chinese must therefore be OPEN for business well before the locals. Not so.
After much curious discussion, we have found nobody yet who can tell us 'why is it so?' Our (ignorant) conclusion is that the migrant Chinese here must feel that they can finally relax a little & still have a decent life by working the hours they feel are sufficient, rather than what their forebears expected. And that they can afford to cater to their own life rhythm & not the local culture's life rhythm. Interesting :)
We're intrigued by this, so will keep investigating & will let you know.
This is why we were shocked to find that here in Argentina, the Chinese do not maintain the same stereotypical business practice as their relatives in far flung locales. Here the asian owner/operator supermarkets actually CLOSE before the general closing time of the local shops!! Chinatown supermarkets & stores close at 8PM; most boutiques close at 9PM; local supermarkets close at 10PM.
The restaurants in Chinatown do stay open after the supermarkets have closed but not after 12 midnight. In a culture here, where the general evening meal happens between 10-11:30pm this seems at complete odds!
By natural conclusion, we figured that (again stereotypically) the Chinese must therefore be OPEN for business well before the locals. Not so.
After much curious discussion, we have found nobody yet who can tell us 'why is it so?' Our (ignorant) conclusion is that the migrant Chinese here must feel that they can finally relax a little & still have a decent life by working the hours they feel are sufficient, rather than what their forebears expected. And that they can afford to cater to their own life rhythm & not the local culture's life rhythm. Interesting :)
We're intrigued by this, so will keep investigating & will let you know.
Saturday, 5 February 2011
Let's complicate this lingo!
The designers of Spanish just couldn't help themselves. They had to make it more complicated for everybody!!
The most common verb in any language is "to be". Right?
So some genius in the year dot decided that en espanol, they should have more than one verb "to be"! And yes, both these verb words have all the essential various conjugations by tense & grammar.
Why? Why indeed?
It's to drive we students of el espanol completely crazy!
What's the difference? Well, I'm still trying to sort that out;
1) "ser" is used for 'permanent conditions' &
2) "estar" is used for 'non-permanent conditions'
Seems straightforward. Not so fast!
A person's religeon is 'permanent' : non-negotiable. Cannot change. Ever.
A person's career is 'non-permanent': a former engineer is not always an engineer, even once they have their degree. They could change their mind!
Being married is 'permanent'. As is being divorced, even if remarried.
However, being 'single' is 'non-permanent', even for an elderly spinster.
Are you seeing a pattern here? I have to learn to think like an ancient Catholic scholar to find some basis for learning when to use which bloody word for what. hahaha!!
The most common verb in any language is "to be". Right?
So some genius in the year dot decided that en espanol, they should have more than one verb "to be"! And yes, both these verb words have all the essential various conjugations by tense & grammar.
Why? Why indeed?
It's to drive we students of el espanol completely crazy!
What's the difference? Well, I'm still trying to sort that out;
1) "ser" is used for 'permanent conditions' &
2) "estar" is used for 'non-permanent conditions'
Seems straightforward. Not so fast!
A person's religeon is 'permanent' : non-negotiable. Cannot change. Ever.
A person's career is 'non-permanent': a former engineer is not always an engineer, even once they have their degree. They could change their mind!
Being married is 'permanent'. As is being divorced, even if remarried.
However, being 'single' is 'non-permanent', even for an elderly spinster.
Are you seeing a pattern here? I have to learn to think like an ancient Catholic scholar to find some basis for learning when to use which bloody word for what. hahaha!!
Shades of Butch Cassidy?
An interesting local occurrence this week that's worth telling.
Just beyond the city limits, to the Westerly direction there is a poorer suburb where the interstate commercial train lines pass through between the port of BA & the country towns, usually carrying produce for export (e.g. beef).
It's developed as a light-industrial area but there is a shanty-town that has sprung up nearby there recently. The shanty towns are mainly populated by non-Argentinians, people from other poorer South American countries that come down to BA in search of work. Being largely illiterate, their work prospects are limited, consequently many of these young males collect into loosely formed gangs, roaming around in search of prospects=trouble. The common thought is that their main source of income comes from busking as jugglers at stop-lights, petty theft & pick-pocketing the hapless tourists. As lousy an existence as it seems to us, this is still better than the impoverished alternative they left behind!
This week, there was an armed holdup of a train heading out from the port. A shootout with the local cops left 1 young man dead & several wounded.
This is the 2nd holdup on this trainline in 3 weeks.
The 1st time, the 'banditos' got away with a large amount of flour. Public opinion was that it was a crime of hunger & therefore apprehensively viewed with some compassion, stirring up public debate. (There's a federal election here in October so all politicians are jockying for position.)
This time, it was auto parts. Hhmmm?? Auto parts. A whole trainload of them! Now the assessment has changed. Given that the banditos were well armed & that this particular load was targeted, being (serial-coded) items that cannot be passed as quickly or seamlessly into the community as food, the criminal cops now figure there's more to this than just an opportunistic hit by the shanty boys. Duh!
Just beyond the city limits, to the Westerly direction there is a poorer suburb where the interstate commercial train lines pass through between the port of BA & the country towns, usually carrying produce for export (e.g. beef).
It's developed as a light-industrial area but there is a shanty-town that has sprung up nearby there recently. The shanty towns are mainly populated by non-Argentinians, people from other poorer South American countries that come down to BA in search of work. Being largely illiterate, their work prospects are limited, consequently many of these young males collect into loosely formed gangs, roaming around in search of prospects=trouble. The common thought is that their main source of income comes from busking as jugglers at stop-lights, petty theft & pick-pocketing the hapless tourists. As lousy an existence as it seems to us, this is still better than the impoverished alternative they left behind!
This week, there was an armed holdup of a train heading out from the port. A shootout with the local cops left 1 young man dead & several wounded.
This is the 2nd holdup on this trainline in 3 weeks.
The 1st time, the 'banditos' got away with a large amount of flour. Public opinion was that it was a crime of hunger & therefore apprehensively viewed with some compassion, stirring up public debate. (There's a federal election here in October so all politicians are jockying for position.)
This time, it was auto parts. Hhmmm?? Auto parts. A whole trainload of them! Now the assessment has changed. Given that the banditos were well armed & that this particular load was targeted, being (serial-coded) items that cannot be passed as quickly or seamlessly into the community as food, the criminal cops now figure there's more to this than just an opportunistic hit by the shanty boys. Duh!
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