Course Syllabus

LAYERED URBANISM

BUENOS AIRES

 

Advanced Design Studio VI - Spring 2023

                                               

GSAPP

Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation

Columbia University    

 

 

Galia Solomonoff, studio critic

Solomonoff Architecture Studio, SAS

gs66@columbia.edu

www.solomonoff.com
www.instagram.com/solomonoffarchitecture

 

Oscar M Caballero, adj. associate
oam2115@columbia.edu

 

 

Kinne     Trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina

From March 6 - 10, 2023

 

Overview

 

Our studio is called Layered Urbanism because it is centered on the premise that cities exist as sites of constant change. The building our studio will consider was built in 1962 and replaced a majestic building built in the 1800s as the city’s central market of Buenos Aires.

 

Most global cities face urban inadequacy, hosting empty buildings for long periods of time on a slow process of natural decay. In our case, Edificio Mercado del Plata, a large building of approximately half a million square feet, 11 stories above ground, three underground, lies unused in the center of the city. This presents a unique opportunity to give a new life to a city heirloom by redefining its value to the city.

 

The building is too big to be ignored and not loved enough to be restored. What to do, then? Demolish it and build a new one? Demolish it partially? Restore it fully? Let it be an art site? Let it become a ruin on its own? Our studio will study the building and learn about this area in Buenos Aires to propose changing the building and dynamizing the city around it. The symbolism of an unused building in the city's center cannot remain. It is untenable.

 

THE BUILDING

 

Aerial view with Obelisco on the left and Mercado del Plata on the right.

 

Address:

Calle Carlos Pellegrini 211

Urban Context:

The building occupies an essential plot. It is 100 meters from the Obelisco, which marks the geographic center of Buenos Aires, and it is said to be the place of its founding by the Spanish in 1536. Its almost 400 feet façade runs along Avenida 9 de Julio, a central artery that is 140 meters wide with 12 lines of traffic. 3 subway lines are immediately adjacent to the building, and the Metrobus passes in front of it. The free-plan building has circulation cores in the center and double exposure, east and west, for light and air, allowing for cross ventilation and light throughout the day.

 

The Obelisco of Buenos Aires, during the celebrations following the Soccer World Cup 2022, Edificio Mercado del Plata in the left corner.

History:

Originally the site hosted the central market of Buenos Aires in the 1800s. In 1962, Edificio Mercado del Plata, designed by Oscar Crivelli and Jorge Heinzmann, was inaugurated in lieu of the central market. It was a very different time for Argentina, which then, after World War II, was a more prosperous nation.

Our site in 1850

Demolition of the 1856 building in 1959 to make room for the 1962 building.

Model of the building by Crivelli and Heinzmann, 1960

 

The 1962 building replaced a market built in 1856, as shown in the photo above.

 

 

Ownership History:

The building was designed for the Municipality of Buenos Aires to house government functions.

In 2012, the construction of a new Buenos Aires City Hall, designed by Norman Foster Architects, replaced the Edificio Mercado del Plata.

 

New Buenos Aires City Hall, designed by Norman Foster Architects, London, replaced the Mercado del Plata in 2012.

 

In 2016, after about 50 years of use by the Municipal Government of Buenos Aires, the city sold the building to an Argentine real estate and banking conglomerate, IRSA, that publicly trades on the New York Stock Exchange. One of IRSA's businesses is the Banco Hipotecario Nacional, the largest mortgage holder in Argentina.

 

Eduardo Elzstain, center, CEO of IRSA, the corporation that currently owns Mercado del Plata.
IRSA is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange since 2004. Picture taken in 2019.

Current Status:
Today, the building is inadequate for banking and office use. It has remained vacant for more than eight years. The building is an empty vessel and an urban canvas. Due to its central location, the unused Mercado del Plata is often covered with banners from protesters overnight and taken by the authorities quickly after, or used as the site of art projects. The site and building's best and highest use is as a mixed-use for civic, offices, and banking functions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edificio Mercado del Plata, unused for eight years and counting in Buenos Aires

Street view towards Edificio Mercado del Plata

Art intervention on façade of Edificio Mercado del Plata

STUDIO METHOD AND ORGANIZATION

 

The studio will be organized in two parts and structured into three segments:

 

PART I

• Research (03 weeks – January 23 to February 9)
• Decision by Midterm Feb 20th – Proposal premise, strategies, demolition percentage.
  
  PART II
• Design (11 weeks – February 10 to April 28)

 

 

RESEARCH: The research will be done and shared by all. We will divide into teams to investigate the city, the building, its history, the architectural firm that produced it, the company that owns it now, the site, and recent large projects in Buenos Aires. The Layered Urbanism will follow a seminar format for the first weeks of the semester. In this seminar, we will think of architecture as a verve. For us, architecture will be the act of learning, connecting, proposing, designing, controlling, and building all at once.

 

Besides studying this site and building, we will delve into similar size new buildings, such as 50 Hudson Yards, which houses Black Rock and other companies, Rothchild Bank in London, Banco de Londres IN Buenos Aires, and Spiral Tower by BIG.

 

Related Buildings to research:

 

In Buenos Aires, Argentina

 

Bank of America, Mario Roberto Alvarez		Banco de Londres, Clorindo Testa

 

 

Buenos Aires City Hall, Norman Foster Architects		Avenida Cordoba 120, Norman Foster Architects

Somisa, Mario Roberto Alvarez

 

 

In New York and London

 

50 Hudson Yards, which houses the headquarter of Black Rock and other companies, Norman Foster Arch.		Rothschild Bank in London, OMA

 

Thomas Heatherwick, South Africa		Spiral Tower by BIG

NOTE: We will visit the site in March and build a physical model of the existing building and adjacent site at scale 1’= 1/16".

 

DECISION: By midterm, we will determine your intervention on the building and site; at that point, you will also decide if you are working individually or in groups of 2 or 3.

 

DESIGN: You will propose a mixed-use program for the building consisting of 33% offices, 33% banking, and 34% civic, cultural, or community use. After the initial research and decision-making phase, the studio will focus on solving the site for new use and users. We will consider how the building can navigate its historic memory to undo its obsolescence, reintegrate into the surrounding city, reduce carbon use, and be resilient to impending global warming and weather events. The building shall stand as an emblem of a new era where Argentina participates on the global stage, integrates solutions, and addresses its economic problems.

 

Our design thesis is that every building relates to every other piece of the city. In our sphere, the built environment and buildings relate to finance, finance relates to government, and governments relate to people. Architecture is, in fact, connected and central to every other sphere of knowledge and problem. It follows that solving one problem, the Mercado del Plata Building in the center of Buenos Aires, will start a ripple effect to solve other urban problems.

 

TRIP AND SITE: 

 

Our site is in the center of Buenos Aires. We will travel during Kinne Week, March 6 to 10th.

 

 

 

SCHEDULE: 

 

The Spring Semester has 20 scheduled studio meetings. It meets Monday and Thursday from January 23 to April 28, 2023, from 1.30 to 6 pm. There will be no meeting on February 27. 

 

• Midterm Review is on Feb 20th, from 1.30 to 6 pm, at Avery 408 and 409.
• Kinne Trip to Buenos Aires, March 6 to 10th, 2023. Spring Break is March 11 to 20, 2023.
• Final Review is on April 28th, from 1.30 to 6 pm, at Avery 408 and 409.

 

CONFIRMED BUENOS AIRES LIAISON

 

Our studio counts the following confirmed guests:

 

Alvaro Garcia Resta, Architect

Secretary of Urban Development, Buenos Aires City Government

Architect (University of Palermo), Leader for innovation in sustainable urban development (School of Design, Harvard), and fellow (New School). During the last few years, he served as the Undersecretary of Projects in the Ministry of Urban Development and Transportation. Previously, he was the Coordinator of Urban Innovation Projects in the Ministry of Economic Development and Chief of Staff of the General Directorate of Healthy Mobility of the Sub secretariat of Transportation. In the academic field, he worked as director and teacher of programs and postgraduate courses at the University of Buenos Aires, the University of Palermo, and the Buenos Aires Technological Institute. He is currently the Director of the postgraduate course in Anthropological Urban Design (FADU | UBA).

 

Vicky Murillo, Professor, SIPA, Columbia University
Director of the Institute for Latin American Studies (ILAS)

Professor Vicky Murillo (Ph.D., Harvard, 1997) holds a joint appointment with the Department of Political Science and the School of International and Public Affairs and is currently the co-author of Non-Policy Politics: Richer Voters, Poorer Voters, and the Diversification of Electoral Strategies with Ernesto Calvo (Cambridge University Press 2019) and Understanding Institutional Weakness: Power and Design in Latin American Institutions (Cambridge University Press, Element in Latin American Politics and Society Series, 2019) with Daniel Brinks and Steven Levitsky. Murillo's research on distributive politics in Latin America has covered labor politics and labor regulations, public utility reform, education reform, agricultural policies, and economic policy more generally.