W hen travelling, one of the first impressions I get of a city is the architecture of its buildings and neighbourhoods.
La Boca was one such fascinating neighbourhood or ‘barrio’ in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It’s known for ‘Caminito’: a colourful, attractive and arty street. This is a pedestrian street where brightly coloured artwork on buildings take prominence, tango artists perform for tourists and is dotted with clubs, restaurants and souvenir shops. A visual treat especially for architects and artists.
Back in time
Stepping outside this revamped touristy street, and you realise that La Boca is a fairly poor neighbourhood with many regular occurrences of petty crimes that have been reported in recent times. The area is where poor immigrant dock workers used to live way back in the 1800’s.
Later in the 1950’s, an artist, Quinquela Martínwas, who was determined to revive the area, painted the houses (which were built from salvaged metal and other cast-away material from shipping containers) in bright paint with visually pleasing artwork.
The area was soon declared as an open area museum and became a major tourist attraction.
But the questions that arise are: did this restoration lead to resolving social issues? What’s the environmental impact of such a project?
Environmentally speaking, the neighbourhood’s revamp was a great move as it prevented the demolition of existing structures and led to rebuilding the area. Not only does it save on building costs, but is a great example of how recycled and salvaged materials can be used in architecture.
However, had this project expanded to other parts of the city along with political intervention, it could have led to the creation of a safer neighbourhood.
Replicating La Boca
La Boca’s transformation is a great learning for all architects on how to envision Indian neighbourhoods through art. Including patterns, visually stimulating patterns goa long way in creating a neighbourhood’s identity. Depicting environmental issues through art is an excellent way of spreading awareness among people on important issues.
In Mumbai, Dedeepya Reddy in collaboration with Snowcem Paints and the Mumbai Metro, is using art to add colour to Mumbai’s landscape, one slum at a time through her recent endeavour — The Chal Rang De Movement. Architects and urban planners must take cue and launch similar projects in their respective cities.
The author is the founder of Green Evolution, a city-based sustainable architecture firm
