Who are the legendary figures of Buenos Aires? Obviously, Eva Peron is the most known (along with hubby Juan). Among those who read, Borges is legendary. Among those who dance tango, there’s Gardel.

Buenos Aires has great old architecture but are any of the architects of Buenos Aires really legendary, the likes of Louis Sullivan or Gaudí?

Actually, this really isn’t about Buenos Aires. The main reason behind this post is to provide an opportunity to quote a passage from a novel by James Salter that I’m reading. Light Years (recently reissued by Penguin and with an introduction by Richard Ford) is about the marriage of Viri and Nedra. Viri is a New York architect:

He could not be Sullivan, he could not be Gaudí. Well, perhaps Gaudí, who lived to that old age which is sainthood, an ascetic old age, frail, slight, wandering the streets of Barcelona, unknown to its many inhabitants. In the end he was struck by a streetcar and left unattended. In the bareness and odor of the charity ward amid the children and poor relations a single eccentric life was ending, a life that was more clamorous than the sea, an everlasting life, a life which was easy to abandon since it was only a husk; it had already metamorphosed, escaped into buildings, cathedrals, legend.

What do you write about when you don’t know what to write? Or, when you’re filled with thoughts, each competing for attention, seeking expression?

I find myself falling back into reading about my favorite historical period, 1880 - 1930. The architecture of Buenos Aires is a vivid reminder of that age, but I’m more and more intrigued by another topic: criminality and mental illness in Buenos Aires, circa 1900.

My reading list includes learning much more about José Ingenieros, one of the leading Argentine criminal psychiatrists, and his mentor José María Ramos Mejia. Along the way I need to re-read a lot of Horacio Quiroga, who did a very good job in his fiction of identifying with the mad. So, over the next few months will be the occasional post about the psychopathology of Buenos Aires a century ago.

Meanwhile, here’s a photo of a somewhat smoky Parque Lezama.

I wish I could draw, but I can’t. If I could draw, then I would spend a lot of time drawing the architecture of Buenos Aires.

The best set of architecture books I’ve seen on any city is on New Orleans, researched and written by the Friends of the Cabildo and produced by Pelican Publishing. While it has been years since I’ve seen one of those books, I remember the great drawings of the buildings. For an example of one of these books, see the Search Inside feature via Amazon New Orleans Architecture Vol V: The Esplanade Ridge

I wish that Buenos Aires had such a nicely produced set of books about this city’s architecture.

But for those who like architectural drawings: out at the School of Architecture, Design, & Urbanism (FADU) of the University of Buenos Aires hangs a set of lovely drawings of some of the best architecture in Buenos Aires.