Public Illusions, Private Spaces: Vicissitudes of the transformations on the urban coasts of the Argentinean Pampa

JAVIER FEDELE ABATIDAGA

Chicago

Conferencia; 13th International Planning History Society Conference; 2008

International Planning History Society Conference

The objective is to ponder the relations involved in the transformations of the urban riverside and their importance in the debate regarding cities and their history, highlighting the eloquence of the spatial and functional consequences of these transformations on the urban structure along time, particularly in its intrinsic and historic connection with the issue of public space. The referred inquiries will be based on two cases, the historic port areas of the cities of Rosario and Santa Fe, two cities of the Argentinean Pampa located on the bank of the River Paraná. This river, of oceanic scale and maritime connection, constitutes the main and oldest navigation line of Argentina, becoming vital for its history and economic development. As a significant historic space, it came to contain examples of ports of diverse scale and complexity, which turned out to be urban episodes with different histories, phases and proposals regarding those facilities. Without any intention of arriving at a refined comparative model, which would require other methodological precisions and a further revision of sources, establishing the relation between two cases when addressing the subject allows one better to dimension the ideas, circumstances, conditions and implications of the processes under analysis. The competition between public spaces and ports is a repeated controversy, not only at the coastline but in the very areas in proximity to the ports, where the struggle for the expansion of the infrastructure gives rise to disputes between port and city administrators, and also forces citizens’ requests and urban opinions. In the 20th century, the role of the waterfront in the composition of the urban plan becomes a subject of opposed opinions. On one hand, its use was required for infrastructure, with economic activities monopolizing the coastline, generating an incompatibility with social and urban programs. On the other hand, it promoted riverfront areas as a territorial characteristic of the landscape, transforming the bank into a resource for structuring the civic spaces of sociability and encouraging the expansion of the urban culture. The study of urban traditions, even in its failed attempts and its fragmented results, is an important source for thinking critically about the current processes of urban transformation in the cases referred to. An historic inquiry will enlighten the discussion, highlighting deficits in the current proposals. They do not always – as is going to be manifested in one of the cities under analysis – consider a project of spaces that articulates trails, activities and appropriations which would ensure the reconstruction of the relationship between the city and its old port facilities. This paper analyzes the contents on which historical research should focus to understand the genealogy of these pieces in the urban context, the changes over time, and mainly, the configuration of critical elements capable of pondering the current conditions of the waterfronts forced into proposals of urban renewal, where the illusions are public but the projects and management – tensed by market profit – do not always guarantee a vital appropriation of space.