 View from theRío de la Plata | |
| Location | |
|---|---|
Place in Buenos Aires, Argentina | |
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| Coordinates:34°32′29″S58°26′35″W / 34.54139°S 58.44306°W /-34.54139; -58.44306 | |
| Country | Argentina |
| City | Buenos Aires |
| District | Núñez |
Ciudad Universitaria ("University City") is an urbancampus of theUniversity of Buenos Aires, the largest and most prestigious university inArgentina. Originally designed as a potential centralized campus for all of the university's facilities, nowadays it only houses two of its thirteen faculties: theFaculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism and theFaculty of Exact and Natural Sciences, as well as a number of dependent institutes and a sports center.
It is located in theBelgrano district of Buenos Aires, on the far-northern side of the city. The complex sits on the banks of theRío de la Plata and boasts one of the city's largest green areas, as parts of it are presently an ecological reserve.
Ciudad Universitaria is located on the limit between the northern Buenos Airesbarrios ofBelgrano andNúñez, on the banks of theRío de la Plata. It is within walking distance ofClub Atlético River Plate'sEstadio Monumental and theAeroparque Jorge Newbery, one of Buenos Aires' two international airports.
Within Ciudad Universitaria, the three buildings housing the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism (FADU) and the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences (FCEN) are known aspabellones ("pavilion").Pabellón I andPabellón II house FCEN, whilePabellón III houses FADU. The lower floors and basement-level floors ofPabellón III also house the Ciudad Universitaria branch of theCiclo Básico Común, the university's entrance course. Adjacent toPabellón I are the buildings of the INGEIS and IAFE, as well as thePabellón de Industrias.[1]
Ciudad Universitaria is accessible through different means of public transport, such as bus lines (lines 28, 33, 34, 37, 42, 45, 107 and 160 all serve the complex) and train (through theBelgrano Norte Line'sCiudad Universitaria station).[2]
From 2005 to 2006, UBA operated a free-of-cost bus line that connected the three main buildings. It was known asTransporte Interno Ciudad Universitaria.[3]
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Founded in 1821, the University of Buenos Aires had its first seat on Perú street, in what is now known as theManzana de las Luces, a compound previously owned by theSociety of Jesus. Toward the 1950s, some of the university's faculties still had to use old, overcrowded buildings, leading to proposals to establish a centralized campus for the university somewhere in Buenos Aires. One of these, for instance, proposed the establishment of a "university city" in the empty terrains where theAeroparque Jorge Newbery now stands.[4]
In 1956, the university began developing a modernization plan which included the establishment of a "Commission for the Construction of a University City", formed by academics and architects such asAlberto Prebisch. The original plan sought to benefit the most relegated faculties in the university first, envisioning a staggered construction plan. Initially, the campus'Pabellón I would be assigned to the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences,Pabellón II toPhilosophy and Letters,Pabellón III to Architecture and Urbanism, andPabellón IV toEconomic Sciences. The complex was also to house therector's offices and the university's central library.[5] Nowadays, FADU and FCEN are the only two faculties to have their seat at Ciudad Universitaria, alongside a number of research centers and other minor facilities.[6]
In 1958, during the administration of RectorRisieri Frondizi, a decree issued by the President of Argentina granted the terrains where Ciudad Universitaria presently stands to the University of Buenos Aires. The terrains were landreclaimed from theRío de la Plata on the Northern end of Buenos Aires City, in the neighborhood ofBelgrano. The blueprints followed a proposal by Swiss architectLe Corbusier from 1938 (in collaboration withJorge Ferrari Hardoy [es] and Kurchan), and re-adapted by the city government's 1962Plan Regulador. The final projects were drawn in 1959 by a team of FADU architects, made up of Francisco and Raúl Rossi, Elio Vivaldi, Enrique Massarotti, Alberto Trozzoli and Florencio Alvo.[5]
The original plan was never completed all the way through. Out of the over twenty envisioned buildings, only two were completed in the style of the masterplan.[7] The government of PresidentJosé María Guido scrapped the original plan and decided to launch a new contest to find a new masterplan proposal. The winners of the contest were US-based architectsEduardo Catalano and Horacio Caminos, alongside engineer Federico Camba.[8] The following year, the new plan was approved, and construction started onPabellón I, which was to house the FCEN departments of mathematics, physics and meteorology. This first building was completed in 1961 and additionally house the Instituto de Cálculo. The Pabellón de Industrias was finished shortly afterwards.
Pabellón III, the third-largest building in the plan, originally designed to house the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, was re-designed to house the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, which began operating in the building in 1971.Pabellón II had been completed the year prior in 1970.[8] Construction work had already begun onPabellón IV. A second stage for the project envisioned further land reclamation in order to construct the rest of the masterplan's buildings. These plans were scrapped abruptly following the1976 coup d'état. To this day, only the groundwork ofPabellón IV remains.[9]
A number of proposals to finish the original masterplan have surged since the return of democracy in 1983. A 2006 proposal to finally erectPabellón V and grant it to theFaculty of Psychology even won a bidding contest in the name of the architecture firm Diéguez-Fridman, but the proposal was never followed through.[10]
During the 1980s a number of smaller buildings were completed nearPabellón I. These were granted to the twoCONICET institutes affiliated with UBA, the Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio (IAFE), designed by Rodolfo Livingston, and the Instituto de Geocronología y Geología Isotópica (INGEIS), both completed in 1984.[11] In 1986,FADU's Secretariat of University Habitat drew an "urbanization plan" with participation of Mederico Faivre, Carlos Maffeis, María Cecilia Ceim, Mario Sacco, among other architects. The plan envisioned the construction of a new railway station within Ciudad Universitaria to grant better access to the complex, a pedestrian street connecting all of the complex's buildings, new housing projects for students and professors, two public parks, an open area for street vendors, among other initiatives. By 1988, only the pedestrian access connecting FADU and FCEN had been completed.
The two public parks proposed by the 1986 urbanization plan were finished in the 2000s, when they were re-envisioned as theParque de la Memoria, which opened in 2005.[12] Recent developments in Ciudad Universitaria include a new building for the Instituto de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Neurociencias (IFiByNe) and theCero + Infinito building, designed byRafael Viñoly and Sebastián Ceria, which serves as an annex for FCEN.Cero + Infinito was completed in 2019.[13] TheCiudad Universitaria railway station was opened in 2015, connecting the complex to theBelgrano Norte railway line.[14]
In the early 1990s, a settlement formed by a gay community known as "La Aldea" or "Villa Gay" was founded in the vacant lots adjacent toPabellón I. The settlement's population grew over time, and its composition went from a gay collective to a mostly mixed population. At its height, up to 100 people lived in the settlement before they were forced to leave in July 1998. Many of them were resettled in hotels and shelters operated by the city government.[15][16]
Illegal settlements continued to grow in the area even after the eviction of Villa Gay. In 2006, as part of the construction plans of theParque de la Memoria, the city government demolished and burned a number of precarious homes where up to 87 families had been living.[17]
In 2007, a group of people founded a self-described "eco-village" named Velatropa in the abandoned groundwork ofPabellón V. The village's homes were built using recycled plastic and clay. Velatropa was relatively tolerated by UBA authorities and received benevolent media treatment, being featured in news reports and documentaries.[18][19] The settlement was evicted in November 2018 by the city government, which alleged it was temporarily displacing Velatropa's inhabitants due to security concerns regarding the upcomingG20 Summit, to be held some 7 kilometers away from the place. The settlement's inhabitants, however, were not allowed to return and Velatropa was eventually demolished.[20]
At present, Ciudad Universitaria houses the following institutions (all dependent on the University of Buenos Aires):
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