Notes on a fluid shoreline. Topographies, practices, and early sensibilities of the beach in the city of Buenos Aires

Abstract

This article explores the shifting spatialities of the Buenos Aires shoreline during the early stages of its development, from its initial topographical configurations to the transformations driven by modernization processes. It seeks to recover a phase of the city's riverside history that has often been overlooked or portrayed as a primitive stage, superseded by the construction of the port at the end of the 19th century. By focusing on this specific area, the article aims to contribute to a long-term historical narrative that acknowledges the temporalities and processes through which the shoreline has shaped the urban history of Buenos Aires.

More impressionistic than systematic in its approach, the text examines, on the one hand, the topographies of the lower plateau, the ways in which it was occupied, the technical knowledge applied, and the interventions that partially formalized this zone of contact between the city and the river. On the other hand, it addresses certain social practices and their tensions with authority, as well as the sensibilities and interpretations that emerged around the shoreline within local cultural imaginaries.