Facing the conflict between capital and metropolis

the 1925 Plan for Buenos Aires

Résumé

After its federalization (1880) to become the capital of a pacified nation, Buenos Aires first mayor led a series of reforms to leave behind the colonial gran aldea. Forty years after, his son, the new president emerged from an expanded electoral base, promoted a new urban reform to face the difficult coexistence of the Capital within a metropolis that had ten folded its population by politicized and unstable immigrants. This early example of "scientific" urbanism relied on the concept of fusion – alluding to the vitality of an art resulting from the convergence of old traditions and new craftsmen – to reconcile in its plan the demands of representation of the political power and the traditional forces with the effervescent suburban working-class barrios.