With family members in town a visit to Recoleta Cemetery was required, but I had numerous postings from there – a focused subject was required. Spiderwebs!
Buenos Aires – January 2020 – The Spiderwebs of Recoleta Cemetery
Tag: Art
Buenos Aires – January 2020 – In This City Art Nouveau Is Looking Up
In the early part of the 1900s Buenos Aires had plenty of money, as it served as the meat and grain market for much of Europe. As a result there are many grand buildings from that era throughout the city, including numerous in the Art Nouveau style.
Much of the ornamentation of these buildings are on the upper floors, so when we went on a tour with the Art Nouveau club we spent much of the morning looking up – as did everyone who was walking by on the sidewalks.
Our tour met at the very cool Savoy Hotel on Callao. Before we started down the street we checked out the interior – including the bar (which was closed at the time!)
Across the street from the Savoy is a Louis Duboise classic apartment building. Duboise is considered one of the fathers of the movement in Buenos Aires.
The corner of Callao and Mitre have examples on all 4 corners.
Just down the street is the Palacio del Congresso Nacional Argentino, aka – The National Congress Building. While not Art Nouveau, it none the less has a lot of interesting detail.
The tour continued down Rivadavia.
The building at Rivadavia 2009 has a glass dome with more than 950 pieces of mirrored glass. In addition the terrace has iron replicas of the Dragon Gate in Barcelona.
Rivadavia has a number of great buildings.
Even some of the garages in this area are designed in the style.
On Hipolito Yrigoyen are two amazing buildings directly across from each other. At 2562 is Casa Calise, the work of Viginio Colombo.
With numerous statues from Ercole Pasina, it looks like a palace, but since it’s completion in 1911 it has always been an apartment building.
While across the street is another Colombo apartment building with amazing style.
As we returned to Rivadavia the area became far more commercial however there are still some Art Nouveau examples that have survived.
Once Train Station anchors the neighborhood. Built in the Renaissance style in the 1890s, it continues to serve tens of thousands of commuters each day.
We headed over to Corrientes for our final stops, passing by this classic Bank of Argentina building.
Our final stop is Abasto. For nearly 100 years buildings on this site, including this one, served as the main produce market for the city.
Today it is a shopping mall.
But an amazing architectural mall. The Art Nouveau tour was operated by the Art Nouveau Club of Buenos Aires – it was well done and thorough, showing us many places we likely would’ve never seen in the city.
Buenos Aires – January 2020 – Station to Station Spanish History Tour in Art on the Subway
The Subway Art Tours of Buenos Aires continues with the C Line. This line runs between the two major train stations, Retiro and Constitucion.
We start at Retiro.
There is a direct passage to the Subte from the Retiro concourse.
The first artwork that is seen is by Fernando Allievi. It depicts the harshness and lonliness of living in the big city.
Along the platform are mosaics celebrates diversity in Buenos Aires.
The first stop is Plaza San Martin. The artist Marcela Moujan brought the green space of the plaza into the subway station with this work.
This Neo-expressionist work by Luis Felipe Noe represents the geographical diversity of Argentina: The Mountains, The Pampa and the Jungle.
A collection of eight friezes by Rodolfo Medina celebrate the liberation campaigns that General San Martin lead to free Chile and Peru.
This piece is entitled El Sur, by Luis Fernando Benedit.
When you reach Lavalle Station you begin to get the Spanish history lesson. In this station the landscapes of the Alicante, Valencia, Teruel, Huesca and Zaragoza regions of Spain are celebrated.
In addition to the murals in the stations the accompanying tile work is unique to each. The overall atmosphere of Diagonal Norte station is of hues of blue.
In this station the regions of Avila, Toledo, Soria, Burgos, Madrid and Aranjuez – with some of the more famous buildings of each city are depicted.
The Avenida de Mayo station has this mural entitled ‘Spain and Argentina’, with images representing ideas. On the right Argentina is young and promising, on the left is the old establishment of Spain. The female figure in the center represents the strong relationship of the two countries, with the subway construction underneath showing the work to join the two.
The supports in the center of the platform make a perfect picture frame for this Ignacio Zuloaga Zableta mural showing the massive aqueduct.
As we continue to the Moreno station we are greeted with more Spanish landscapes: Bilbao, Santander, Alava, Navarra, Santiago, Lugo and Asturias are all represented on the murals on both sides of the platform.
Again the tile work leading to the platforms is amazing.
Independencia Station – Landscapes here include Seville, Granada, Cordoba and others.
San Juan Station – The Levante region, where the sun rises.
The history lesson is over, we have reached Constitucion – you are now fully in Argentina. The painter and cartoonist Florencio Molina Campos was famous for the characters of the Pampa region.
Welcome to Constitucion Station.
Favorites of 2019
A great year of sights – these are my favorite 30 photos of 2019, with brief explanations why they are my favorites.
Chicago – Willis (Sears) Tower. The perspective of people out of their elements.
Washington – The former Capital Columns in the Arboretum. The morning lighting with the wildflowers and contrast of the columns.
Washington – Embassy Open House Day – and a young lady’s perfect timing next to their logo.
Near Frankfurt, Kentucky – I have a thing about old, seemingly abandoned buildings. This however had been reclaimed and re-used for it’s original purpose – bourbon storage and aging.
New Orleans – Mardis Gras World. It was like stepping into some psychedelic movie.
Avery Island, Louisiana – The symmetry of the rice fields with another old building.
Houston – The home of quirky art. This is from Lucky Land, a very cool place.
Houston quirky art part 2 – Giant President Heads.
San Antonio mission. Symmetry and historic architecture.
Amarillo, Texas – Cadillac Ranch, but after a storm where they appeared to be in a pond.
Columbus Zoo and a zoom lens. The statement in the face and amazing beauty of the animals.
Montreal – Ferris Wheel in Old Montreal – Perfect timing and lighting (just lucky on the timing).
Marietta, Ohio – Sternwheeler festival.
Chicago – Open House and another fantastic ceiling/light.
Buenos Aires – obviously the extended period spent in Argentina has opened a new world of photo possibilities. Recoleta Cemetery is the most popular tourist spot in the city, and I had the good fortune of some young lady there for (I suspect) a photo shoot when she ran by the row I was in, turned and posed for me! Who doesn’t want a photo of a young lady running through a cemetery with a knife.
Recoleta Cemetery provides so many great shots – the cob webs are natural, not staged.
The tomb of San Martin.
The La Boca neighborhood is known as a working class neighborhood in love with their team – La Boca juniors. The old car symbolizes the working class neighborhood and it was parked in front of the soccer practice fields with their bright colors on the walls.
Chacarita Cemetery is not as famous as Recoleta, but still a very stunning place.
The sunrises and sunsets can be amazing.
An hour drive out of town to San Antonio de Areco, and their gaucho festival was the event of the year. 4000 people and horses dressed for the occasion.
The Jacaranda trees are fantastic in bloom.
On a walking tour of street art the passer by’s sometimes fit the theme.
The Casa Rosada. A great courtyard and a bemused guard.
Hockey in Argentina – bring that soccer passion inside and combine it with hockey.
Finally – Bariloche, a beautiful mountain and lakes region.
Buenos Aires – December 2019 – Random Scenes for the Last Days of the Year
With some spare time due to the holidays at the end of the year we checked out a few sites in the Recoleta neighborhood including a visual arts museum, which of course because of the holiday’s was closed.
The library itself was also closed. Good thing there are a number of public sculptures nearby.
The famed Floralis Generica. The pedals close each night and reopen in the morning.
Next door is the law school, which has a great lobby which was…closed.
The former design center.
A museum next to the Recoleta Cemetery. The museum was closed but the cemetery was open 🙂
Enough closed buildings, lets go hang out in Olivos Harbor.
The setting sun gave a great ‘Olivoshenge’ – not quite Manhattanhenge, but still cool. And the sun has set on 2019!
Buenos Aires – December 2019 – D Line Subway Art
Christmas day morning is the perfect time to take photos of the massive amount of art in the Buenos Aires subway – the trains are running frequently but there are very few people on them, or in the stations.
This posting is not meant to be a catalog of all of the art as it would be far to extensive, rather to profile some of the best. The photos go in order from the furthest station out (Congresso de Tucaman) to the termination at Catedral. Many of the notes detailing the work came from a PDF/book published in 2017 by the city of Buenos Aires.
We start in the Congresso de Tucaman station with a large mural that is meant as a statement of freedom and independence, with a number of symbols including a condor which stands for the southern hemisphere and an eagle which stands for the northern hemisphere. This mural also represents sacred symbols and the idea that it is never too late to make dreams come true.
This mural, as well as a number of others, in the Jose Hernandez station is by Raúl Soldi. The works depict a bygone era of art and music.
The ticket level has a tribute to Lionel Messi, a legendary Argentine soccer player.
In the Palermo station are works from Milo Lockett, evoking childhood memories to provide a pleasant journey.
In the Plaza d’Italia station are three beautiful tile murals by Leonie Matthis de Villar. This one is depicting public ceremonies the chiefs used to carry out with the priest before entering the church.
The columns of the station are decorated by Marino Santa Maria, the mosaic artist we met in his studio a few weeks ago.
On the floor of the platform, protected by special resistant material, are scenes from the Port of Buenos Aires in the 1930s. It represents the Italian immigrant laborers of the day.
Many of the stations have these fantastic murals on tile. Completed by Rodolfo Franco, they were installed in the stations during their construction in the 1930s, depicting both historic and current (for 1930s) life across Argentina.
In the Pueyrredón station are a series of illustrations by Gustavo Reinoso showing the symbols of the city in a Pop Art style.
Further into town at the Facultad de Medicina we return to more of the Franco murals.
In the Callao station there are 8 large mosaics portraying German artists who learned their artwork was destroyed by the Nazi’s at the end of World War II. Completed by Remo Bianchedi, it is a tribute to the anguish those artists felt.
Knowing this now they seem cheapened by the large advertising nearby.
The Teatro Colon station has a far more modern art approach.
Also in the Teatro Colon station are representations of the Spanish conquistadors coming to Argentina, and the impact it had on the natives.
In this mural depicting 1835, gauchos are resting after the end of their journey, leaving their carts half-loaded. This image contains those goods that were part of the international trade that later Argentina into the breadbasket of the world.
We end at Catedral where the beloved Mafalda is lamenting the condition of the world.
Buenos Aires – December 2019 – Museo Larreta
Enrique Larreta was an Argentine Nobel Prize winning author who collected an amazing amount of Spanish art. He housed this collection in his home in the Belgrano neighbhorhood of Buenos Aires.
After his death the city took over the home and gardens and established a museum, later renamed in honor of him.
The gardens are equally as beautiful.
