Symposium: “Different Perceptions of Historic Cities

Symposium: “Different Perceptions of Historic Cities

9th US/ICOMOS International Symposium
“DIFFERENT PERCEPTIONS OF HISTORIC CITIES AND SITIES
AND CONSEQUENCES ON THEIR PROTECTION AND
MANAGEMENT”
SESSION 1:
“BUENOS AIRES AS A WORLD HERITAGE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE”
“The River, The Pampas, The Historical Ravine and Inmigration”
María de las Nieves Arias Incollá
a. País:
República Argentina
Planisferio donde se encuentra localizada América del Sur
Mapa de América Latina, donde se encuentra la República Argentina y
Mapa de la República Argentina donde se encuentra la provincia de
Buenos Aires y la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires
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1.b. Estado, provincia o región
The proposed inscription is a portion of Autonomous City Buenos Aires, capital of the
Repúblic of Argentina.
1.c. Nombre del bien
Buenos Aires, Paisaje Cultural:
El río, la pampa, la barranca histórica y la inmigración
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Boundaries of the area proposed for inscription in the World Heritage List:
Buenos Aires Paisaje Cultural: “El Río, La Pampa, La Barranca Histórica, La Inmigración”
CONCEPTUALIZING Buenos Aires AS A CULTURAL LANDSCAPE OF
OUTSTANDING UNIVERSAL VALUE:
A cultural landscape represents a "joint work of the man and the nature". The physical
support of this cultural landscape is based on two complementary geographies: the river
and the Pampas. The La Plata River, one of the greatest estuaries of the world, defines
the vocation of Buenos Aires as a harbor city, and conditions not only its economic (the
port as a source for development) and social (the immigration of million people from
different continents that found a space of opportunities) development, but also its plan and
its urban tissue (successive ground gain of the city onto the river). The plain of the
Pampas made possible the extended application of the checkerboard colonial plan,
extending it over a topography that facilitates the limitless perception of the territory. The
encounter of the river with the Pampas, defined as a ravine, articulates, on the one side,
the original city and on the other, the successive extensions of the City onto the river,
conforming a new interaction of nature-culture. This boundary generated the gateway of
immigration, which is the true protagonist and determining element of the universal value
in which the cosmopolitan and the multicultural characters of Buenos Aires are the key
elements.
The cultural landscape of Buenos Aires is the result of the smooth interaction with Europe
since its foundation. As an interactive port, the products of the Pampas went out to the
world and in return came European manufactures, new cultural models and ways of life,
but mainly, the people who made possible this development.
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The components that express the outstanding universal significance still remain and are
the physical and cultural foundation of the proposed area. It is in this area where the
cultural heritage elements took root and grew. They express the interaction between the
geography and the human effort to transform it into vital resources.
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