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City of La Plata, Foundational Urban Area

Property names are listed in the language in which they have been submitted by the State Party.

Argentina (Latin America and the Caribbean)
Date of Submission: 30/06/1998
Criteria: (ii)(iv)(vi)
Category: Cultural
Submitted by: CONAPLU (National Committee for UNESCO), Ministry of Education
Coordinates: S35° W58°, 50 km from Buenos Aires, 7 km from the coasts of the La Plata River
Ref.: 1085

Description

The Foundational Urban Area of the City of La Plata, being the main objective of this application for the List of the Worid's Heritage, was entirely designed in 1882 as a new city, planned as a whole to serve as site of the new capital of the Province of Buenos Aires.

The above mentioned area covers a surface of 2,265 hectares, made up of 40 blocks by 40 blocks, and delimited by a complete set of ring roads

The site was located in an area historically known as 'The Ensenada's Rises', which was selected in 1880 out of a set of pre-chosen sites, for being a high area with good soil and drainage, without existing buildings but very near a small town called Tolosa, at which trains from Buenos Aires already arrived.

Since its design, foundation and construction (carried out at record speed, betwean 1882 and 1889, see maps 3 and 4) the new city has been characterisad by the concretion in reality of a paradigmatic and original urban model, that was the combination of three tendencies:

* the principles of the neoclassical urban Arts, consisting of great monumental axes meeting at points where they constitute squares and other spaces, representative of the social and political life,

* the legacy of cities dating from the Hispanic handation in America, having a regular design in a grid of homogencous blocks and strong criteria of centrality,

* the influence of avant-garde ideas of the second half of the 19th century, which incorporated wide criteria of urban reafforestation, small farm production, and urban hygiene, as well as bigger concern for the growing traffic of the intense modern fluxes.

This last aspect enabled the model to be characterised as heving environmental value and being of sustainable development. La Plata became one of the first cities to intentionally have important urban forestry all along its streets, that complements the vast network of squares and parks that systematically enrich the ecology, the landscape and the culture of the city, and the drainage systems being constructed since its foundation. Likewise, the efficient network of wide streets, avenues and diagonals has enabled the traffic to remain without excessive concentration or traffic jams up to date.

Note:lastly, in relation to the introduction of avant garde ideas, we shouid emphasize that the city was not only thought of inwardly, as a closed object but it was considered in its context and its regional productive role: it was given a big harbour to replace the overloaded and old-fashoned one in Buenos Aires, and it was surrondad by a belt of farms and fields to provide fresh nourishment (the "bread producer" of hispanic fundations) to the new city. These components of the surrounding areas have been dramatically transformed and heve been partly substituted by outskirts urbanisation. However, there is already a sustained process heading for its economic, productive and ecological which constitute ressons why these are not considered part of the proposed property even though they are protected as element of the biggest regional system.

The general urban model is enriched by the incorporation - planned at the same time of the foundation - of a system of palaces and representative, political, cultural, educa tional, religious and of social concern buildings. All these give a higher aesthetical and architectonic hierarchy to the urban quality of the city. Thus, this property has a bi-dimensional design over the territory - in the way urbanism does- which has been kept almost unalterable from the original design. But it is raised to a three-dimensional dimension by its monumental buildings and its rich forestry and parks. All this constitutes a set of activities for the quality of urban life, in its civic, cultural and everyday aspects, which heve few times been thought of and constructed as a unity, and later kept almost inalterable throughout 120 years of age. (See attached photographs).

There are two other main features that complement the essential characteristics of this property:

* its historical-political value that represents the proposal of a democra tic and progressive country, characteristic of the so-called 'generation of the 80's' in Argentina, which conceived the creation of this new capital city for the Province of Buenos Aires as a 'pledge of national peace'. In that way, the province of Buenos Aires- the most important and strongest in the courtry would be able to hand over the territory of its previous capital, the city of Buenos Aires, and make it the federal district of all Argentinians.

*its likelihood of conservation, since the property to be protected is entirely of municipal public domain, what has enabled it and will enable it to remain duly cared of by the successive municipal governments, as a state duty (both in the legal aspect and in the way of handling it).

There are eight urbanistic and architectonic components that summarise the rich complexity and uniqueness of the proposed site:

Strict urbanistic components:

* Central area with perimetric ring

* Macroweft of open spaces

* The diagonal weft

* Streets with wide and wooded pavements

* Compact and equilateral blocks

Urban-arquitectonic components:

* The monumental axis

* Palaces surrounded by gardens

* Small distributed centralities

The above mentioned list shows the high level of unity of the urbanistic model, from the macro-spatial scale to its micro-spatial components, and the richness and diversity of those components.