La “pratica del fabbricare” italiana a Buenos Aires: strumento di modernizzazione tra formazione e immigrazione

Abstract

The architecture and urban model that transformed Buenos Aires into a modern city became fully visible around the 19th and 20th centuries. These are evidence of the European cultural transfer to the South American continent through the migratory phenomena of building technicians, mostly Italians. They have been able to combine "European modernity" with the native tradition of local construction through knowledge, education and savoir-faire. The absence of specialists in this field allowed technicians immigrant to contribute for a long time to construction the new image of Buenos Aires. They left a great cultural imprint highlighted in the vast historical and architectural heritage, also favored by international attendance of designers, architects or engineers.

In this modernization way, the building production could not respond only to stylistic-formal canons, but it was necessary to satisfy the technical requirements of the new building and hygiene rules. In this evolutionary context, the Italian builders emerged by combining business initiative and secular saber profesional.

An important role was played by Italian professors who had the hegemony in the university teaching of the technical subjects since the beginning and for a long time. Likewise, their scientific production immediately occupied a privileged place in Argentine university literature, including the Carlo Formenti Pratica del Fabbricare (Milan, U. Hoepli 1893), a manual present in most of construction site of the early 20th century.