Adam: Architect, First Man

Abstract

Advertisements in architecture magazines in Buenos Aires, from the SCA Bulletin in 1955 (which replaced the Revista de Arquitectura of the Sociedad Central de Arquitectos until 1967) to the first issues of Summa (1963-69) and the numbers of Nuestra Arquitectura in between, allow the recognition of at least two of its tasks. The first was the promotion of solutions and equipment targeted to either architects, entrepreneurs or clients with no distinction. The other, the offer of items of personal care, from cashmere garments and beverages to men’s magazines, all them outside the professional sphere. The years of the items studied here were characterized by the consensus in the inexorable modernization of Argentina, a position held unanimously by leaders, businessmen, professionals and common citizens. This article will identify in a series of advertisements common to the aforementioned magazines, the progressive constitution of the their interlocutor: the architect, successively separated from any of the others. Presented in advertisements as the executive of a large company, the advertisers associated the competitiveness and efficiency of the professional with the transformation of his daily experience and his own affinities in a modern world. In a parallel between the modernization of the country and the modernization of the subject, the architect was identified as an expert, a connoisseur, bon vivant and man of the world.