The city of Buenos Aires has an architectural memory that impresses more than one tourist.
Many foreigners are surprised to see a strong European imprint in the porteño buildingsproduct of the migratory currents that moved the urban lines of the capitals from which they came.
One of the architects who stomped on the local scene was the French Le Corbusierthe greatest exponent of international modern architecture stood out for the construction of the Curutchet House in La Plata and its 400 works in the rest of the world. The modern vision of him in the industry was replicated in the minds of those who worked with him, who later graced Buenos Aires with his imprint.
That is the origin of Los Eucaliptos, the project of Argentine architects Juan Kurchan and Jorge Ferrari Hardoy who after finishing their studies traveled to France to learn from Le Corbusier himself in person. That was how during 1937 they worked in his studio and diagrammed the design of an urban plan for Buenos Aires. Upon returning to the country years later, the duo founded the Austral Group and in 1942 applied the modern postulates that they had learned from their mentor in the building on Calle Virrey del Pino 2446, in the Colegiales neighborhood.
Industrial and technological revolutions always mark a paradigm shift in society. In the past, the creation of the ocean liner caused quite a stir and the shock wave of its invention came to impact the art and architecture of the time. In this case, the concept implied have all the necessary comforts and services that a boat of these dimensions has, prepared for the months that the trip lasts. Le Corbusier was one of the artists moved by this concept and he embodied it both in his pupils and in his works, for example, in the Marseille Housing Unit built in 1956.
However, the student surpassed the teacher and his Argentine disciples captured him first in Los Eucaliptus. They decided, in 1942, that the building would be crossed by the concept self-supporting: “That is to say, that in the same building the person who lives there has everything necessary to develop, live, be comfortable”points out an architect from the Giménez Chair of History of the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA).
Today this concept is known as amenities. They included spaces that were not common to see in residential buildings and equipped it with a garage with a driveway, a garden with children’s games, a laundry room, a library, a multipurpose room, and a restaurant within the same property where residents could go to eat or order to take back to their apartments.
The construction is also aligned with another of Le Corbusier’s maxims: that the buildings are located in the center of the block to free up the front towards the municipal line. The idea was that if all the batches in the block complied with that slogan, it would form a green ring with the municipal line and the fully built center, opposite image to what is normally seen today in the city of Buenos Aires. The underlying reason why Le Corbusier had this vision was not merely aesthetic, but rather that he wanted that front green to act as a acoustic insulation from street noise. In addition, in this way in this project the three eucalyptus trees that give the building its name.
The trees that gave the project its name also influenced the design of the entrance, despite the fact that they are no longer there today. To access the building, you have to cross a garden with a winding path that formerly surrounded the eucalyptus trees and allowed you to appreciate the construction from different viewing angles.
The UBA architect maintains that this building was one of the pioneers of sustainable architecture in the country: “Sustainability began to be studied in the 60’s and this was built in the 40’s, when the ecological was something utopian.” Some characteristics of Bioclimatic Architecture -as sustainability was called at that time- are ventilation and thermal insulation. “Most of the Los Eucaliptos units do not need air conditioning because it is achieved naturally from the cross-ventilation treatment between the front and back of the building. For this, it has a system of banners (windows) that connect the front and rear of the building, to which is added the green lung in front of it”, adds the architect.
The structure was also novel for the time. The property of 2655 m² It was built in the middle of World War II. In those years, iron was scarce since it was used for the production of weapons and therefore it was scarce in construction. However, the architects decided to dispense with the stipulated materials and manage using wood, from the façade to the parasols in the front that rotate to regulate the light, to take advantage of the native resources of the country. Even so, they chose to paint it in a color that simulated the metallic tone.
The 30 apartments distributed in nine floors and a penthouse They are from one to three rooms and are distinguished by being customizable in the configuration of your space. In the units there are built-in furniture with an axis that allows pivoting and rotating according to preference. This made it possible to combine different configurations of the environment, designed for the different types of inhabitants who lived there.. An extremely current feature in apartments and flexible furniture. “A person can live alone, with their pet, with their child, a couple with and without children… Although today it is normal, these architects thought about it in the 40s when the prototype of the family was that of a father, mother and two children. They were 80 years ahead of how society would live in the future”, highlights the UBA professor architect.
For example, designed for these units the mobile coat racks that allow you to adjust the height or the built-in refrigerators of which there was one in each department; They were fed by a power source that was on each floor and today they have been converted into cupboards.
Generally, the service areas are located at the back so that the living rooms and bedrooms face the front garden and receive the best lighting -thanks to their northeast orientation- and views of the green. On each floor of the building there is a bathroom in the service exit and we can highlight the solid oak railings that are of their original wood from the 40’s.
On another level, from the Giménez chair they point out an atypical aspect in the architecture of 80 years ago, which is adding color to the façade with tiles and venecitas. “The Argentine, especially in Buenos Aires since perhaps in the north or in the south this does not happen, he is afraid of color. There they used color on the façade with the idea of applying it as a connecting element between nature and architecture”, he points out. He adds about the façade that in this case it was not load-bearing, like the brick ones that were customary to use, but that “it is built with the idea of dominoes because the structure of the building is independent of reinforced concrete, beams, columns and slabs. This allows any element such as wooden carpentry, plastic panels and glass bricks to be placed on the façade. It is shown that the façade is not structural and there is freedom to include any material that is desired”.
The influence of Le Corbusier is not the only name that stands out in the history of this building with patrimonial protection and that it even opened its doors for several editions of Open House, the architecture and urbanism festival of the city of Buenos Aires in which recognized buildings of the Capital open their doors to the public.
Numerous world personalities passed through its gardens, such as the writer and journalist Italo Calvino whose mother-in-law lived in one of the apartments or the Argentine actress Amelia I think when the building was used as a recording set for one of his films. In line with the concept of amenities, the building also included a restaurant on its premises. Originally called López, it was frequented at noon by personalities such as Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortazar in the 50’s. For four decades it was called Kitayama, a popular Japanese restaurant that closed its doors in 2020, and was recently renovated by its new owners.
Followers of Argentine architecture might long to live in a building with so much history behind it. That possibility today becomes a opportunity, since one of the studio apartments is for sale. The 33 square meter unit sells for US$115,000 and to this day retains its original appearance.l, according to the Bresson Realty Buenos Aires real estate agency that has the apartment for sale, including the mythical BKF armchair, created by the same architects of the building.
According to Gabriela Dominguez, personal broker de Bresson Realty, some of the neighbors are linked to the world of art and cinemaTherefore, it is these types of profiles who seek the building because they especially appreciate its history and significance. Although the publication price exceeds the average sales square meter of the neighborhood -US$2,233/m² of used ones, according to Zonaprop-, it is revalued due to the condition of historical heritage that was granted to the building with the benefits that this entails, such as not paying the ABL real estate tax.
