Joel Bowman with today’s Note From the End of the World: Buenos Aires, Argentina…
What a delight it is, to live in a once and future capital city of the world!
Wandering the deep, man-made caverns of downtown Buenos Aires, you get the feeling you might be meandering through a geological cross section… only, instead of different rocks denoting ancient periods – Cenozoic Era, Mesozoic Era, Paleozoic Era, and the Precambrian, for example – the architecture tells a more recent tale…
… one in which man found inspiration in the zenith of his cultural and aesthetic achievements…
… and then lost it altogether.
Around the turn of the 20th century, during the height of Argentina’s wealth and glory, her inspired architects and builders had a glint of the ancient world in their eye. Prosperous barrios, like Recoleta and Retiro (from the clip above) featured stunning mansions in the neoclassical and French Baroque style, with ornate porticos, towering Corinthian columns and intricate moldings adorning grand façades.
The building you see at the end of the clip, the Palacio Estrugamou, was completed in 1924, when Argentina was perhaps at the pinnacle of her cultural and economic power. Constructed in four sections, the palacio was built around an internal patio that featured a bronze copy of the iconic Winged Victory of Samothrace.
A masterpiece of Greek sculpture from the Hellenistic era (190 BC), the statue represents the defiant goddess Niké (Victory), whose head and arms are missing. Its base is in the shape of a ship’s bow. The bronze replica in Palacio Estrugamou faces the great Rio de la Plata (River of Silver), from which Argentina sent her vast agricultural and mineral wealth, from the fertile Pampas and far-flung Patagonia, to the farthest Ends of the World.
Would that such days of liberty, of abundance, of the inspired works of man, return to these one proud shores…
And now for your Notes From the End of the Week…
Final Notes…
We’re spending the weekend with dear friends out in the campo (countryside), a couple of hours north of the capital.
As it happens, this weekend is both Robbie Burns Day (named in honor of Scotland’s national poet) and Australia Day (a day of commemoration for your editor’s country of birth).
Needless to say, there will be plenty of Scotch whisky, spontaneous poetry recitals around the asado and, of course, lots of Vegemite on toast to cure any resulting headaches the morning after.
Whatever you’re up to this weekend, we hope it’s filled with excellent company and good cheer. As the great poet himself wrote:
Life is but a day at most.
Sprung from night, in darkness lost;
Hope not sunshine every hour,
Fear not clouds will always lour."~ Robert Burns (1759-1796)
Stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World…
Cheers,
Joel Bowman
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