La Plata Day Trip

Corbusier House

La Plata square, and some local boys



Cathedral in La Plata

Bank Of London

Last Friday instead of studio, our professors arranged a tour of La Plata, a nearby city, and also some visits to buildings in Buenos Aires. Our first and main building that we saw in La Plata was a home by Le Corbusier. It was the first building of his that I have seen in person, and it was a really nice project. That Friday was Dia de la Primavera (spring day) which is a big holiday for students, were everyone skips class and goes to the parks in the city. La Plata has a large main square in the center of the city, and it was full of people and activity. While walking in the square and taking pictures a group of boys approached me and asked me to take their picture, it was very funny. Right off of the square is a huge Neo-Gothic cathedral that we went in. It was such an amazing space, very relaxing. I really enjoyed my time there. After we saw the Cathedral we went back to Buenos Aires, where we went to a few more buildings. One we saw was The Bank of London by Di Testa. It was a really interesting use of concrete. I had studied this before in my history classes, so it was nice to see it in person. It was a nice day, and fun to get out of Buenos Aires in the morning to see La Plata.

Homesick, Rainy, Sunday with Matt Damon

Well I have passed the month mark, and on Wednesday I will have been here for 5 weeks. There has been a lot of adjustment and things that I miss while being down here, mostly family, friends, and John. However, for the most part time has really been flying down here. Today, though, I was pretty homesick and just wanted to hear English, or do something American. So I started to watch some movies when I got a call from one of the guys in the program asking if my roommate and I wanted to go to a movie. It seriously couldn't have come at a better time. So five of us decided to go see the Bourne Ultimatum. Let me tell you it is quite an experience going to the movies down here. There was a huge line and around 8 tellers at the ticket counter. They even had a monitor that told you which teller was ready. Very organized. There is always a little anxiety trying something here for the first time, and I seem to always be pushed to the front of the group to do the talking. So I try to order a ticket using some broken spanish, and what a dream the guy actually spoke ENGLISH! I was so happy I could have kissed the guy. It is actually quite amazing how many people DONT speak english down here. So that was a gift from god. Anyway, down here you have assigned seats at the movies, which was interesting because we all went to buy our tickets separately which you cant do if you want to sit together. So after figuring that out we all got our tickets, and popcorn! Once you get into the theater they have three or four people waiting to take your ticket and direct you to your seat. The seats were very comfortable by the way, and not to close to the screen. After getting our tickets, treats, and seats, there was only one hurdle left...is the movie in english. So we waited with anticipation for the first words to be spoken (already having our exit route planned). Another gift from god, it was in english. I must say those two hours were so awesome, I completely forgot about being homesick, and even forgot I was in a foreign country (which is impossible down here). Nothing like an action movie and matt damon to feel american again.

Puerto Madero

So even though we had a bunch of work to do for studio this week, a few of us decided to go out and see some sites on sunday. We went to Puerto Madero, which was the main port in BA for a period of time but not anymore. A lot of existing buildings have been remodeled and house restaurants, stores, and other businesses. They are also building a lot of high rise housing projects. The architects here have pretty strong feelings about the area, and believe that it is not as successful as it could be. As for me I have formed no opinion except that I enjoyed my few hours walking around the area. One of the big draws was a bridge by Calatrava called La Muejer (the woman). He based the form of off the position in the Tango when the woman is dipped. It was a cool pedestrian bridge, one of his smaller works, but still very fun to see in person. After we walked through Plaza de Mayo (the photo of me chasing the pigeon is here, but it was from a different trip, i just thought I would include it with this post. Next to the plaza was a pretty monumental building that we decided to check out and it turned out to be a really pretty church. In it were a lot of niches with artwork and areas to pray to different saints. One of them however contained a Mausoleum to an important general (I think). I also took another pic for erika of the backside of nuns praying. The picture of the tree is just a somthing random. I saw it and thought it had the weirdest looking trunt. All in all it was a nice few hours out on the town and a good break from homework. I hope everyone is doing well! I am going to try and keep the posts coming!

Scar

GOAL!!!!!!!!!

A few weeks ago I went my first soccer game in Argentina. Here in Buenos Aires there are two main soccer clubs, River Plate (the team we saw) and Boca Juniors. The River Plate stadium is literally next door to where I go to class every day, and the Boca stadium is right by where my site for the project is. River is considered the rich team, fans are stereotyped as being rich and living in the rich area of town. However, they haven't been having the best season this year. Boca fans come from the poorer neighborhoods, but they are one of the best teams right now. We went on a weds. afternoon so it wasn't as crazy as they are on sundays, but I was still quite impressed with the number of people who came to the game. We had good seats, just about as close to the field as you can get, but all the true river fans sit in the upper deck under the jumbo tron. They were insane and so loud up there and throughout the stadium. Soccer isn't just a game it is truly a religion here (see pic of the vendor selling river plate stuff including rosary beads). We ended up being put on the jumbo tron three separate times which was really funny, the boys joked that it was because i was one of a few girls there and I had red hair. See the pic, above you can just make us out on the screen.

Jills Wedding!

So I know that Jill and Brad got married over a month ago, but I was just looking at the pictures again and decided to post some on my blog. It was a beautiful wedding, and I had so much fun with all the many events over the weekend. Jill looked gorgeous of course, and Brad and her were so happy all day. I was just so happy to be a part of such a fabulous day for them. Enjoy the pics!

Two weeks in!

Elementary school in boca, images of their basketball hoop and gym, and one for Erika of girls walking down the hall.

Random old car on a street in Boca.

Theater in Boca. Image of the exterior, props stored backstage. The third image is of how tickets used to be handled in the box office back in the day

Images of housing in Boca underneath the highway. This is where our site for our studio project is located.

I am now finished with the second week of classes and I have been keeping really busy. First off let me just say that i am new to the blogging world and for that reason my blogs are going to appear a little funky. I am sure i will master photo and text placement soon, but until then you will just have to bear with the messy layout. :) This week we started to get into our studio project a little. We have been doing work exploring the city of buenos aires as a whole up until friday when we had our first site visit. Our studio this semester is about public architecture, about buildings meant for public use. We are still in the beginning phases of things, but our project is going to be centered around a theater group in La boca. They are a community group and everyone volunteers their time to be a part of the productions. They have been around for a few decades and began as street performers and eventually found a theater space to work in. As of right now we will doing a theater located in the area of where all the housing is (see pics above). It was quite an experience to visit the area under the freeway. The people currently living there were hit hard by the financial crash that happened in BA in 2001, some are immigrants and some are just people who have fallen on hard times. Seeing the area was a very sobering experience, and one that I was grateful to have. I hope that this trip and specifically working on a project that involves these issues will teach me a lot about different cultures and different ways of life. I have already gained a bigger perspective on the American way of life from just two weeks here. I am really enjoying experiencing all the different aspects of the culture of Buenos Aires. Hope everyone is doing well back in the states and enjoying their holiday weekend!

Scar