The Mendoza comprehensive schools plan (Argentina, 1962-1972: standard projects and territory

Abstract

Throughout the 20th century, school construction became a core component of state consolidation processes in Argentina, closely linked to the expansion of schooling, territorial organization, and socioeconomic development. In a context marked by overlapping responsibilities between the national state and provincial governments, and by the progressive advance of educational decentralization since the mid-1950s, school architecture acquired a strategic role in the formulation of public policies. During the 1960s, developmentalist orientations and the country’s growing international engagement fostered the professionalization of educational architecture, in dialogue with organizations such as UNESCO. Within this framework, this article analyzes the school construction plan implemented by the province of Mendoza between 1962 and 1972. Based on the revision and analysis of documentary and technical sources, the architectural and territorial characteristics of standardized designs, the connections among different levels of the state, and continuity and reformulation processes were examined, in comparison with previous experiences. The study demonstrates that Mendoza’s school building policy constituted a sustained strategy of educational planning and territorial development, consolidating the provincial government's leading role and assigning standardized projects a central role as instruments of state modernization in the Argentine context of the 1960s.