The Tucumán, Argentina University campus: Context and circumstances of a utopia

Abstract

From its foundation in 1914, the University of Tucumán carried out its activities in various buildings that, as they were not designed for this purpose, had serious operational issues. In the decade of the 1940s, the Institute of Architecture and Urbanism (Instituto de Arquitectura y Urbanismo) made a proposal to build a university campus on San Javier hill. The plan followed the principles of modern urban planning and was the ideal laboratory to apply each of its postulates. Likewise, it was also the stage for the debate of two opposing positions among those who drew up the design: those who proposed the imperative rules of CIAM urbanism, and those who aspired to implement a more organic approach. In the present article, which is part of the research project: “20th Century Architecture in the NOA [Northwest Region of Argentina]: Analysis and Critical Assessment of the Architectural Production of the Modern, Late-Modern and Post-Modern Movement[s]”, the goal is to establish the genesis of a large-scale project that would completely transform the landscape of San Javier hill and the history of the university. The methodology used to address the case investigates the political context of the decade between 1945 and 1955, as well as the leading actors and their circumstances, in order to understand the reasons behind the project, the positions that prevailed in the design, and the causes that motivated the paralysis of the enterprise. Today, seventy years after the start of the works, it can be affirmed that the entire project was based on the premise of a strong national state, whose political conflicts and economic crisis contributed to its failure.