Neo-Colonial Housing, or the Choice of a Way of Life

Abstract

The term “neo-colonial” clearly expresses the intention to recover the architecture of the “Colonial” period and present it as “the” Argentine architecture.

In the history of housing in Argentina over the last seventy years, “neo-colonial” housing has been chosen by a significant part of our society. This broad acceptance suggests that users find in it cultural values with which they identify. This paper seeks to investigate what these values are. Are they the same for all users, or has this housing model been loaded with different meanings since its appearance in the 1920s?

In order to answer these questions, the explicit and implicit motivations of the users and/or promoters of this type of housing have been analyzed. In this regard, the ideological foundations of the Nationalist Restoration (1910–1930), the opinions of architects and/or users published in different magazines in the 1930s and 1940s, and the arguments put forward by different sectors of the Peronist government to justify the choice of the neo-colonial style for its housing plans were examined.

After comparing these motivations, we conclude that they have changed over time and that the persistence of neo-colonial forms in Argentine housing can be explained by their great capacity to bear meanings.

This would explain the revaluation of the neo-colonial style in the postmodern period of the 1980s and 1990s, when, through different stylistic expressions, attempts were made to reverse the absence of meaning in architecture produced by the Modern Movement.