TOWERS IN A GARDEN IN BUENOS AIRES

Ignacio Montaldo, Arch.

Torcuato Di Tella University
School of Architecture and Urban Studies
History and Criticism of Architecture and the City | Conference 2023
Architecture and Nature: languages, environment, sustainability
Conference on History and Criticism of Architecture 2023
July 12 and 13.

INTRODUCTION

The city of Buenos Aires became federalized in 1880, at the time with a 4-thousand hectare area and a 400-thousand population. Seven years later, Act Number “Municipal expansion area of the Capital City” was enacted; thus including the neighborhoods of Flores and Belgrano ceded by the province of Buenos Aires to the Federal Capital City. With this expansion 14 thousand hectares and no more than 14 thousand inhabitants were added who were basically concentrated in the towns of Belgrano and Flores. By the year 1936 the city area was completely urbanized, within a continuous grid without any break in continuity, where the original township, that one before the annexation, could not be individualized.[1] In the year 1904, for the first time, the outline of a plan, made by the Public Works Department of the Municipality, was published including the grid sprawl project for all the extent of the city new limits. The outline contains the layout of a public parks series in the frontier space between the consolidated city and the sprawl area.[2] The French architect and landscaper, Carlos Thays, served during the years 1891 and 1920, as director of Parks of the Buenos Aires city, performing the remodeling, project and realization of the majority of the green spaces which were crucial for the shaping of Buenos Aires urban image[3].
Gorelik’s work, “La grilla y el parque. Espacio público y cultura urbana en Buenos Aires, 1887-1936” (The grid and the park. Public space and urban culture in Buenos Aires 1887-1936), rebuilds and problematizes the growth of the historic framework of Buenos Aires city from the two material and cultural pictures which structure the relation between the constructed and the public space, between the built and the green space – the grid and the park-, literally the frame of blocks that square the territory of Buenos Aires, and the urban green made in the public parks[4].
This view of the nature in the city is sustained in the block as a constructed solid and the public space determined by the streets that organize the squared pattern and by the green spaces that are set up around the absence of some blocks in the configuration of the squares and to the parks situated in certain places, as accidents in the grid determination.

THE NEED FOR PLANNING AND FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NATURE

During the ‘20 and ‘30 decades there appears the need to plan and regulate the way of growth and the densification of the city, even outside the limits of Av. General Paz. In 1925 the “Organic Project for the Township Urban Plan. Master Plan and Reform of the Federal Capital City” is published, which was developed by the Aesthetic and Building Commission of the City, summoned by the Mayor Carlos Noel, during the administration of the president Torcuato de Alvear.[5] The plan proposes a rebalancing of Buenos Aires urban structure, and among the assumptions we can find the “Multiplication of the public parks and gardens for different uses”[6], which were undertaken by the French landscaper Forestier[7].
Several city organizations coordinate the visits of urban planners, who coincide, even from different viewpoints, about the need to plan the sprawl and growth of the city, and about the absence of green spaces, and of the loss of relation with nature.
In the year 1929 the ten lectures of Le Corbusier in Buenos Aires, are going to pose his ideas about the concentrated city, proposing a project that is not a tabula rasa, but instead one who works on the real city, setting the ideas of the green city and recovering the relation of Buenos Aires with the river from the mainstreaming of the business city. While simultaneously speaking of the city without hope, he is fascinated with Buenos Aires, where he can guess, in Palermo park crossed by Avenida Alvear, a first image of the “Villa Verte”, with its towers embedded in the trees, served by highways, as they appeared in the famous outline that illustrates the October 14^th. lecture [8]. (Picture 1).
Two years later, in 1931, the German urban planner, Werner Hegemann visits the city of Buenos Aires and Rosario, invited by “The friends of the City”, to give ten lectures in the School of Exact Sciences. Hegemann holds a viewpoint contrary to Le Corbusier’s, being in favor of radicalizing the expansion of the urban sprawl and favoring the individual homes over the multiple-dwelling buildings[9]. But he agrees in considering the lack of green in the grid of Buenos Aires: in the architecture magazine Revista de Arquitectura, November 1931, there is a publication with a brief review of his visit, where a quote by Hegemann says that Buenos Aires is “the greatest ocean of buildings with a minimum of green oases that he was aware”[10].

MASTER PLAN FOR BUENOS AIRES. LA VILLE VERTE / THE VERTICAL BLOCK

During 12 months, from October 1937 to October 1938, Le Corbusier is going to return to the ideas posed in his trip to Buenos Aires so as to write with the young Jorge Ferrari Hardoy and Juan Kurchan, the proposal of the Master Plan for Buenos Aires[11].
The plan is going to coordinate three main ideas: the city concentration with the increase of the density in the city center, and the addition of the satellite districts; the restructuring of the vehicle grid, separation pedestrian automobile, super blocks connected to the highway network; and finally the monumental sites[12].
In the diagnosis of the Current State of the City, the work published in the magazine “La Arquitectura de Hoy”[13], there can be appreciated a historical evolution of the block in Buenos Aires, where the traditional block of the Spanish foundation, composed by one-floor houses built on the street border and open to the inside towards “los fondos” (the back), with plantations, trees and gardens. This scheme that originally worked correctly, now was overwhelmed by the growth, with constructions that completely occupy the lot depth, and that rises between 8 and 20 floors high. “They have completely filled the block area; there are no more gardens; there are not even “patios coloniales” – colonial yards; only the narrow and dark “Patios de Ventilación” –ventilation yards. There is no more solar light in a great part of the rooms”. [14] This diagnosis does not agree with the materials with which urban planning should be materialized, according to the definition in the CIAM Atenas 1933 Conference, which are: Sun, Space, Trees, concrete and steel, in that order and in that hierarchy[15].

THE RADICAL PROJECTS

WLADIMIRO ACOSTA: A SERIES OF STUDIES ON “CITY BLOCK” 1927-1935

Acosta develops a theoretical model for the city of Buenos Aires concentrated in a development of vertical urban planning, where the block is composed as a super-building, focusing on the ground floors of the shops, on the middle floors of the basement, the spaces of work and offices and the homes rising in higher floors by a cross-shaped typology.
In the first versions we can observe, the inclusion of nature, in the pedestrian circulation level over the basement level. (Picture 2).
This project is developed on the basis of the precise measure of the checkerboard layout of Buenos Aires: “…begins, as a basis, from the mean distance between axis and axis of the streets in the checkerboard layout of Buenos Aires, that is, 130 to 140 m”[16]. In each block a unique 100 meter-high building was foreseen on a square 100 meter-side base.
A second version (1931) is going to consider particularly the balance between the built areas and the green spaces and the shaping of a 230 meter-side super block which improved the traffic and the vehicle crossings. (Picture 3). Likewise, WA develops another version that is going to tackle the problem of the sunlight produced in the cross-shaped tower, with a high building, in a plaque form, east-west orientation in all the rooms, simultaneously replacing the closed yards in the lower body through “wide open surfaces”.
This project, though radical, is adjusted to the pre-existence of the colonial checkerboard, adapting to its structure, intending to be constructed, and incorporating the accuracy of the healthy studies of sunlight and ventilation, and giving a special attention to add the green space and the construction of nature, in the different stages of the project.
In the project designed together with Fermín Bereterbide for the Hogar Obrero Cooperative, the Nicolás Repetto building, located at Av. Rivadavia 5118 corner with Riglos, is going to try the theoretical model of the “City Block”, in the realization of a basement and plaque building, where the tensions between the theoretical model and the real city are going to appear [17].

URBAN DEVELOPMENT OF BAJO BELGRANO. A DISTRICT FOR 50 THOUSAND INHABITANTS.

“In order to restore the health to the city, it is necessary to conquer, for the citizen, the green of the pampa that sleeps behind the concrete”[18].
The project of the urban development for Bajo Belgrano represents one of the projects of dwelling satellite city, proposed in the Buenos Aires Master Plan, and developed by the team of residential zones in cooperation with the rest of the specialized teams of E.P.B.A. (Estudio del Plan de Buenos Aires – Study of the Buenos Aires Plan), body dependent on  the municipality of Buenos Aires city, during the years 1948 and 1949.
The project is part of the guidelines of “Ville Verte”, already mentioned by Le Corbusier for the Buenos Aires Master Plan of 1938, which replaces the original configuration of traditional blocks in the city, by vertical blocks, which occupy an 15% area in relation to the free area of the ground that remains for nature and the complementary recreational and educational programs.
The short film for publicity, directed by Enrico Gras[19], portraits in an explicit way with all types of visual effects, that the Buenos Aires city is collapsed by the traffic and the densified construction without any break in continuity in the checkerboard, having lost all track of the green and the river, that succumb under the concrete. The project proposes a radical recovery of nature, following the urban guidelines designed by Le Corbusier: separation and stratification of the vehicle movement from the pedestrian, the plaque building oriented east-west, the free ground floor, and ample and generous green spaces for leisure.

THE PROJECTS IN THE REAL CITY. THE TREE AND THE FOREST[20].

When Jorge Ferrari Hardoy and Juan Kurchan return from their stay in Paris, they are going to design two rental buildings: the Departamentos Transformables in Belgrano, (1940-1941), at O´Higgins 2319; and Los Eucaliptus Building (1941) at Virrey del Pino 2446.
These works are going to be used as references, both in the plan publication as in the project for Bajo Belgrano. Los Eucaliptus building appears in the filming in the short movie for publicity.
Both works come to be a reading of the Belgrano district as a “garden neighborhood, with inhabitants whose lifestyle is generally more open, free and sporting …”[21]
The building on O’Higgins street is developed on a very small lot, where the design of the staircase position separated from the main body, accessing by a walkway and through a small terrace, is going to equal the qualities of the front and the back walls, oriented east-west. The architects propose that from any point of the apartment the plants and flowers can be viewed; in that sense in the fourth floor a terrace with garden and grass was designed[22].
The collage that the architects published in number 1 in Magazine Tecné, show the structure of the building, without a trace of neither construction nor of the traditional block, surrounded by green, from the street trees foliage, from the garden flowers, from the sun and the sky. (Picture 4).
In the project of Los Eucaliptus building they are intending to go beyond, asking for a special permit in the municipality on the grounds of saving some ancient eucaliptus, in order to construct a building at the back of the lot, discontinuing the construction on the municipal line.  By this way they designed a building with the code, but thinking of a loose construction, that somehow it could be inserted soon to the conditions of the new urban planning.
In the poster for the project publicity, one can see the photo of the “tower” loose in the block center, in a natural and treed environment, in the Belgrano district. (Picture 5).
The building includes the ancient eucaliptus, within the framework of its visual structure, in the intent to create with them a unique plastic expression. All the lot to the front facing north-west, is composed by a garden that gives access to the building.

BARRANCAS AND TOWERS

On October, 1948, Act number 13512 includes in the Civil Code, the Regime of Condominium Property, what is going to allow making the ground property independent, so being the owner of an apartment that is on the air, and yet not necessarily linked directly to the soil.
This is going to foster a type of development different from that of the rental house, where an only proprietor was the owner of all the building. By the year 1953, the Belgrano district was no longer a neighborhood of mansions to become “an appealing bite of the horizontal speculation”[23].
The Belgrano district was suitable for the high constructions of condominium buildings, due to the fact that there it counted with lots of measures, more generous than the current ones, and because even after this fast transformation that takes place, it continues being an area essentially residential.
The project by Onetto, Ugarte, Ballvé Cañás on the corner of the streets Echeverría and Zavalía on the slope, has been a pioneer of the towers that later appeared, not being a tower, but instead it was born as a high-rise building. As a result of both the intelligence of the architects and the further good sense of the municipal body, this building was allowed to be constructed, in exchange for ceding space in the corner and retiring from the party walls, thus obtaining a scale that gives a frame to the slope. The photos published in the Magazine NA (Picture 6)[24], about the tower in the green, reminds us the perspective of LC and his Ville Verte[25]. The decision to over-elevate the building solves an adequate scale that takes advantage of the possibilities of implantation in front of a public park, “allowing that this building rises giving a frame to the slope, not going against it …. And the built silhouette emerges calm and paused within the foliage of the slope …”[26]
The building solves with mastery a resolution of the corner in which the perimeter of the lot does not continue, but instead it breaks in a convex way so as to expand the perimeter towards the good view of the park, achieving that the two apartments of the type plant have the same views.

TOWERS IN A GARDEN IN BUENOS AIRES.

The official Bulletin of Buenos Aires City published the Municipal Order Number 4110, “Rules for the Construction of Building Towers” on May, Thursday 16th. 1957.
In its grounds, there is an enunciation saying that “this new regulation, carefully made through detailed studies by the Commission of the Zoning Construction Code, agrees to admit shapes of buildings contained in ideal, simple prisms, where the shaft rises, to a certain extent, at some distance from the axes separating lots, in order to make room to open spaces which connect the central backyard of the block with the public street, without containing inner yards to serve inhabitable premises …” [27]
The regulation proposes a building model that enhances the conquest of the natural light (Buildings of total Illumination) and the grouping of parcels for the new projects. In January 1963 an article entitled “The first Tower in Belgrano” is published in the magazine Nuestra Arquitectura 398 [28]. It is concerned about a 17 high-floored tower, with one apartment on each floor, designed by the Hungarian architect Antonio Vermes for a consortium of owners.
The tower is slightly rotated, on a two-level basement, which takes the geometry of the lot and the street[29].  This rotation of the pure prism allows orienting the rooms of the apartments to the best conditions of sunlight. “This disposition let a maximum utilization of the sun, facilitating the best advantage in the morning hours, not at noon when its activity is minimum despite its full intensity”[30].
If one takes the axonometric view and the photos published, we can observe that the tower is seen alone, in a green environment, which again reminds us of the Ville Verte by LC and of the City Block by WA. (Picture 8). Besides, another photo is interesting, taken from the corner of Villanueva and Teodoro García, where there is a typical mansion of the district, that some years later will be replaced by the COVIDA tower, designed by the architect Mario Roberto Álvarez. (Picture 9).
The typology of vertical tower that, in this context, is going to be developed, is neither that of a cross-shaped plant, nor the plaque, both for the sizes of the lots and for cultural reasons, and the same reason why is going to develop from the square or rectangular plant with compact core at the expense of the corridor street[31].
“Belgrano is a Garden”, was the motto of the real estate agencies which promote the apartments of the new towers in the Belgrano district during the ’70 decade[32]. There one could clearly see a process in which the suburban homes of the Belgrano estates old zone were the factor that appealed the new towers, both for the size of the lots, and for the suburban environment and the consolidated green in the foliage of the streets and the gardens of the residences and estates.
In this city sector, delimited by the streets, Cabildo, Luis María Campos, Olleros and Juramento, the typology of tower construction, starting from the original conditions of the site, and the speculation, is going to consolidate in such a way that is going to produce a change in the grid inside the checkerboard of the city. There, the pure and free prisms are going to consolidate the block, dissolving the closed and rigid space of the street, and the center of the block, so as to merge and link them without any break in continuity. The retreats from the street are going to allow the symmetrical development of the treetops, and the lateral retreats, the creation of gardens that, though generally are private, and circulation along them is not permitted, they are visually open and interlinked, allowing long views and, the passage of the sun and the air recreating a high density suburban climate. (Picture 10).
In this area of the city, the regulations were tested in a pragmatic architectonic model, that apart from theoretical models, produced a laboratory that put into practice, from a speculative attitude, a city pattern which has developed a building typology of qualitative homes, concerning pure prisms, architectonically sustained on a quality of construction and its materials; the sobriety of its shapes, the amplitude of its balconies and terraces as a mediation space between the inside and the outside. The accent in the landscaping at the street level that connects visually the street with the interiors of the block through the gardens. The retreats of the front and/or lateral walls of the towers are going to enable that the treetops of the sycamores planted on the sidewalks, can develop without interference in a symmetrical way in all their directions, different from the trees that have to grow with construction on the municipal line, and tend to bend on the top.
The sights at a pedestrian level are enriched and give the possibility to broaden the perspective towards the interiors of the block. On the other hand, the separation between buildings allows a co-existence, at a stylistic level, of different architectures, materials, and constructive systems and visual expression. This enables a best relationship from the material discontinuity and its visual separation, guaranteeing the individuality of each building over the stylistic intent of block uniformity, that practically is not verified in most parts of the city constructed in the last 50 or 60 years. In that same line the buildings are not a series of floors between two blind walls, with “facades” in the front and the back walls, but instead are autonomous volumes, which have the same grade of hierarchy and visual treatment in the conformation of structure and closing in their entire perimeter. Thus this is the way to eliminate the current absurd of constructing high dividing walls, as blind walls, that “one day” will be completed by the neighbor side, but in the meanwhile there are water-resistant, thermal and visual treatment issues that instead the project between dividing walls have to tackle in order to work for an indefinite period.
The urban landscape is constructed with nature and with architecture.
These works, in general, have been developed in the frame of the real estate speculation, giving a new way of professional practice for the architects. This is the case of the works designed by Aisenson study, which, from the year 1960, begins a new phase of its professional practice, characterized by the construction at cost[33]. “In this management mode, the professionals select the location of the lot and its measures, design the project, treat personally with each interested party from the beginning of the work, are in charge of its technical supervision, and manage the payments of the clients”[34]. Sometimes these buildings projected by the same firm, will be developed in side lots which are going to make up a group, such is the case of the corner of the streets Villanueva y Teodoro García, designed by Aisenson study. [35] (Picture 11).
The authors confirm the hypothesis posed in this paper, raising that the design strategies, which produced the success of these buildings, are made up by the rationality of the project, the flexibility that allow adapting the units to certain variants of the use according to the specific needs of each proprietor. Besides there is the stylistic unity, starting from the urban insertion of the free-perimeter tower  that releases the ground floor with spacious spaces allowing the landscaping treatment, along with the project that uses in upper floors great terrace balconies, windowsill pot balconies and inner gardens, which create transition spaces between the inside and the outside; and finally, the requirement in the constructive realization, through an exhaustive tracking in the phase of the technical direction, and of the use of natural materials that favor a good aging of the building.[36]
In the ground floor plan of Virrey del Pino Group[37], (Picture 12) one can see the level of completion of the ground floor with its gardens projected together with recreation spaces including a tennis court.
These pragmatic buildings tried a model of city, breaking with the traditional urban forms, from a model of urban management and reform, directly related to the intervention on the real development of the city, far from the radicality of theoretical models.
In this sector of the city, the tower stopped being an isolated fact, to consolidate the implicit urban model proposed by the 1957 &1977 Codes, strengthening an alternative urban model before the traditional block made up of the constructions semidetached to the dividing walls.[38]
In the face of the last change of code, in the year 2018, that returns to favor a city model that consolidates the closed block and the construction between dividing walls, this urban fragment is a place to explore and review, to rethink the possibility of the tower and the high-rise construction as a form of urban development that combines the relation among agglomeration, densification and suburban landscape, within the frame of the new environmental and sustainability requirements  that the contemporary society demands.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Acosta, Wladimiro. (1947) Vivienda y ciudad. Problemas de Arquitectura Contemporánea. Buenos Aires: Anaconda, 1947.
Aisenson, Estudio. Conjunto Virrey del Pino, (3 de Febrero 1981, Virrey del Pino, 11 de Septiembre 1580). Summa. mayo de 1982, Núm. 174, pág. 38/39.
Aisenson, Estudio. Edificio Olleros 1979. Summa. mayo de 1982, Núm. 174, pág. 40/42.
Álvarez, Mario. Edificio COVIDA, Teodoro García y Villanueva. Nuestra Arquitectura. julio de 1972, Núm. 477, pág. 40/41.
Álvarez, Mario. Torre COVIDA, Teodoro García y Villanueva. Summa. junio de 1971, Núm. 38, pág. 48/50.
Baliero, Horacio; Katzenstein, Ernesto. Le Corbusier en la ciudad sin esperanza. Summa. marzo/abril de 1976, Núm. 99, pág. 87/89.
Ballent, Anahí. (1987) “Acosta en la ciudad: del City Block a Figueroa Alcorta. El edificio para “El Hogar obrero””.  Instituto de Arte Americano E Investigaciones Estéticas. Mario Buschiazzo. FADU UBA. N25.
Berjman, Sonia. (2009). Carlos Thays. Un jardinero francés en Buenos Aires. Embajada de Francia en la Argentina.
Boggio Videla, Juan. Belgrano morfología de un cambio. Summa. octubre de 1968, Núm. 13, pág. 23/31.
Diez, Fernando; (2021) “Algunas constantes sobre las transformaciones urbanas.” Bs. As. Academia de Arquitectura y Urbanismo.
Estudio del Plan de Buenos Aires; EPBA; Ferrari Hardoy; Sarrailh, Eduardo. Evolución de Buenos Aires en el tiempo y en el espacio. Revista de Arquitectura. 1955 y 1956, Núm. 375 y 376/377, pág. 2/84 y 25/125.
EPBA, Estudio Plan de Buenos Aires. Urbanización del Bajo de Belgrano. Un barrio para 50.000 habitantes. Revista de Arquitectura. Nro. 369 Buenos Aires, 1952.
Ferrari Hardoy-Kurchan. Casa de renta en Belgrano, Virrey del Pino 2446. Nuestra Arquitectura. agosto de 1954, Núm. 301, pág. 243/247.
Ferrari Hardoy-Kurchan. Casa del Árbol, Virrey del Pino y Cabildo. Summa +. agosto-septiembre de 1993, Núm. 2, pág. 32 y 36/37.
Ferrari Hardoy-Kurchan. Departamentos transformables en Belgrano, O’Higgins 2319. TECNE. agosto de 1942, Núm. 1.
Gorelik, Adrián (2010). Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, ed. La grilla y el parque.
James R Scobie, (1977). Buenos Aires, del centro a los barrios, 1870-1910.
Larrañaga, María; Petrina, Alberto; López Martínez, Sergio. Arquitectura Moderna en Buenos Aires 1928-1945: un estudio de la Casa de Renta. Buenos Aires: Fondo Nacional de las Artes, 2017.
Las conferencias del Arquitecto Dr. Werner Hegemann. Revista de Arquitectura. noviembre de 1931, Núm. 131, pág. 533.
Le Corbusier. (1947) Plan Director para Buenos Aires. 1947. La Arquitectura de hoy Nro. 4. Buenos Aires. Abril 1947.
Le Corbusier. (2015) New edition. Precisions on the Present State of Architecture and City Planning. Park Books.
Liernur, Jorge Francisco; Pschepiurca Pablo. (2008). La Red Austral. Obras y proyectos de Le Corbusier y sus discípulos en la Argentina (1924-1965). Universidad Nacional de Quilmes. Prometeo 3010. Buenos Aires.
Liernur, Jorge Francisco; “Juncal y Esmeralda, Perú House, Maison Garay: fragmentos de un debate tipológico y urbanístico en la obra de Jorge Kalnay”. Instituto de Arte Americano E Investigaciones Estéticas. Mario Buschiazzo. FADU UBA. N25. 1987
Onetto-Ugarte-Ballvé Cañas. Barrancas y Torres. Edificio en Zavalía y Echeverría. Nuestra Arquitectura. Febrero de 1963, Núm. 399, pág. 22/26.
Paz, Manuel. Hacia una superación del paisaje porteño. Nuestra Arquitectura.  Mayo de 1959, Núm. 354, pág. 46.
Revista de Arquitectura – Año XXXVIII – Nº 369 -Enero – Febrero 1953. Urbanización del Bajo Belgrano. Un barrio para 50.000 habitantes.
Vermes, Antonio. Primera torre en Belgrano, Teodoro García 1955. Nuestra Arquitectura. Enero de 1963, Núm. 398, pág. 28/31.

REFERENCES

[1]Gorelik, Adrián (2010). Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, ed. La grilla y el parque. (The grid and the park).
[2]Ibídem.
[3] Sonia Berjman (2009). Carlos Thays. Un jardinero francés en Buenos Aires. (A French gardener in Buenos Aires). Embassy of France in Argentina. (Parque 3 de Febrero, Los Andes, Florentino Ameghino, Colón, Patricios, Chacabuco, Parque Leonardo Pereyra, Centenario, Lezama, Avellaneda, Intendente Alvear and Parque Barrancas de Belgrano as well as the squares at Congreso, Plaza de Mayo, Rodríguez Peña, Solís, Castelli, Brown, Balcarce and others). He made plant along the streets with 150,000 specimens.
[4]Gorelik, Adrián (2010). Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, ed. La grilla y el parque. (The grid and the park).
[5] Liernur, Jorge Francisco; Aliata, Fernando. Diccionario de Arquitectura en la Argentina. Tomo O-R. Buenos Aires, Agea. 2004. Page. 76.
[6] Mayor Carlos M. Noel. Commission of Building Aesthetics. Organic Project for Township Urban Planning (Municipal Township). Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1925. Page. 63.
[7] Jean Claude Nicolas Forestier (Aix-les-Bains, January 9, 1861 – París, October, 26, 1930).
[8] Baliero, Horacio; Katzenstein, Ernesto. Le Corbusier en la ciudad sin esperanza. (Le Corbusier in the city without hope) Summa. marzo/abril de 1976, Num. 99, pages 87/89.
[9] Liernur, Jorge Francisco; Aliata, Fernando. Diccionario de Arquitectura en la Argentina. (Dictionary of Architecture in Argentina). Tomo E-H. Buenos Aires, Agea. 2004. Page 147.
[10] Revista de Arquitectura (Architecture Magazine) Año XVII – NAº 131 – noviembre 1931. “Las conferencias del Arquitecto Dr. Werner Hegemann” (The lectures of the Architect Dr. Werner Hegemann). Page 533.
[11] Liernur, J. F.; Pschepiurca P. (2008). La Red Austral. Obras y proyectos de Le Corbusier y sus discípulos en la Argentina. (The Southern Network. Works and Projects of Le Corbusier and his disciples in Argentina).  (1924-1965).
[12] Liernur, Jorge Francisco; Aliata, Fernando. Diccionario de Arquitectura en la Argentina. (Dictionary of Architecture in Argentina). Tomo O-R. Buenos Aires, Agea. 2004. Page 74.
[13]Le Corbusier. Master Plan for Buenos Aires. 1947. La Arquitectura de hoy (Today’s Architecture) Nro. 4. Buenos Aires. Abril 1947.
[14] Le Corbusier. Master Plan for Buenos Aires. 1947. La Arquitectura de hoy (Today’s Architecture) Nro. 4. Buenos Aires. Abril 1947.
[15]Ibídem.
[16] Acosta, Wladimiro. (1947) Vivienda y ciudad. Problemas de Arquitectura Contemporánea. (Housing and city. Problems of Contemporary Architecture). Buenos Aires: Anaconda, 1947.
[17] Ballent, Anahí. (1987) “Acosta en la ciudad: del City Block a Figueroa Alcorta. El edificio para “El Hogar obrero””. (Acosta in the city: from the City Block to Figueroa Alcorta. The Hogar Obrero Building). Instituto de Arte Americano E Investigaciones Estéticas. Mario Buschiazzo. FADU UBA. N25.
[18] “La Ciudad Frente al Rio. Tercera Fundación de Buenos Aires” 1948. (The city opposite the river. Third Foundation of Buenos Aires). Short film. Director: Enrico Gras. Photographer: Oscar Melli.
[19]Ibidem.
[20] Headline used by Liernur for the chapter about the buildings JFH y JK, in Liernur, Jorge Francisco; Pschepiurca Pablo. (2008). La Red Austral. Obras y proyectos de Le Corbusier y sus discípulos en la Argentina (1924-1965).  (The Southern Network. Works and Projects of Le Corbusier and his disciples in Argentina). Universidad Nacional de Quilmes. Prometeo 3010. Buenos Aires.
[21]Ferrari Hardoy-Kurchan. Departamentos transformables en Belgrano, O’Higgins 2319. TECNE. agosto de 1942, Núm. 1.
[22]Ibídem.
[23]Onetto-Ugarte-Ballvé Cañas. Barrancas y Torres. (Slopes and Towers) Building in Zavalía and Echeverría. Nuestra Arquitectura. February 1963, Num. 399, page. 22/26.
[24] Ibídem.
[25]Perspectiva “La Ville Verte”. (La ciudad Verde – Perspective The Green city). Publicada en Le Corbusier. Precisions. On the present state of Architecture and Planning. Reprinting of the original American Edition. Park Books. 2015. Zúrich.
[26]Onetto-Ugarte-Ballvé Cañas. Barrancas y Torres. Edificio en Zavalía y Echeverría. (Slopes and Towers. Building in Zavalia and Echeverría). Nuestra Arquitectura. February 1963, Num. 399, page. 22/26.
[27]Source: Municipal Bulletin, CEDOM.
[28] Vermes, Antonio. Primera torre en Belgrano, Teodoro García 1955 (First Tower in Belgrano). Nuestra Arquitectura. January 1963, Num. 398, page 28/31.
[29] The modification made in the Code in the year 1977, is going to remove the requirement of the basement, allowing the towers completely isolated and free of any trace of the street.
[30]Vermes, Antonio. Primera torre en Belgrano, Teodoro García 1955. (First Tower in Belgrano). Nuestra Arquitectura. January 1963, Num. 398, page 28/31.
[31] To broaden the cultural dimension of the corridor street and the compact core and the basic types of “patio”, “tira” and “torre”, see LIERNUR, JORGE F. “Juncal y Esmeralda, Perú House, Maison Garay: fragmentos de un debate tipológico y urbanístico en la obra de Jorge Kalnay”. Instituto de Arte Americano e Investigaciones Estéticas. Mario Buschiazzo. FADU UBA. N25. 1987
[32] Diez, Fernando; (2021) “Algunas constantes sobre las transformaciones urbanas.” (Some invariants in the urban transformations). Bs. As. Academia de Arquitectura y Urbanismo.
[33] Aisenson, Estudio. Conjunto Virrey del Pino, (3 de Febrero 1981, Virrey del Pino, 11 de Septiembre 1580). Summa. mayo de 1982, Núm. 174, pág. 38/39.
[34]Ibídem.
[35]Ibídem.
[36]Ibídem.
[37] Aisenson, Estudio. Conjunto Virrey del Pino. (Aisenson Study. Virrey del Pino Group).
[38]Boggio Videla, Juan. Belgrano morfología de un cambio. (Belgrano, morphology of a change). Summa. October 1968, Num. 13, page. 23/31.