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To Build or not to Build: Architecture and Prohibition in Argentine Culture
- The Latin Americanist
- The University of North Carolina Press
- Volume 52, Number 3, October 2008
- pp. 31-57
- 10.1353/tla.2008.a706351
- Article
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Abstract:
Architecture is not only the erection of buildings, or the general organization of space. In the analysis of the structures created during a given period of time we can see how they represent particular values and forms of social control. In the case of Argentina, the debate about modernization that began shortly after Independence paid close attention to how monuments and architectural endeavors were important in policing transgression and excess. In this essay I will analyze how the control of filth/excess, and the mandate to purge it, structured a debate on the meaning of public space. I will pay particular attention to the symbolic connotations of enabling cleanliness and prohibiting filth during two important moments in Argentine history.