From Urban Image to Urban Imaginary : Shaping the Paris of Latin America in a Global Perspective

Abstract

Deemed by David Harvey (2004) the “capital of modernity”, Paris and its urban image became a model for the architectural reshaping of Buenos Aires, as well as its urban imaginary as a “Paris of Latin America”. This chapter examines the formation of an urban image that sustains this urban imaginary: it traces the circulations of architectural form from Paris to Buenos Aires and beyond. In a first part, it scrutinizes the architectural histories of the Parisian makeover of Buenos Aires, examining both borrowings and their meaning, but also the scale and expressions that reflect the ambitions of the New World. Second, it contrasts Buenos Aires’s Parisian influences with Argentina’s economic entanglements with Great Britain at the turn of the century, interrogating the common assertion that space is produced by power relations and economic processes. Finally, the chapter interrogates how historical ruptures, including dictatorships and various crises, affected the urban imaginary of Paris.