AGAINST VARIATION

Abstract

Only two of the twenty buildings designed in 1958 by Eduardo Catalano and Horacio Caminos, for the master plan of Ciudad Universitaria de Buenos Aires, were finally built. Identical and arranged side by side, on the limit between the city and Ri de la Plata, their implementation followed the suggestion of the Master Plan for the city carried out by the architects Ferrari Hardoy and Kurchan together with Le Corbusier. A strategic terrain with the capacity to expand over water without restrictions.

There are two pavilions, but, for us, it is only one: a repetition system. Faced with an indefinite program intended to respond to the needs of different faculties, the project establishes a generic floor capable of hosting different organizations. While the flexibility of its interiors is frequently recognized, the qualities of its perimeter are still ignored: an envelope generated by a single precast concrete element, maniacally repeated on all its faces, without differences or hierarchies, ignoring orientation and context.