Salamone’s legacy and other architectural gems

The recognition of Azul as “Cervantine City” by UNESCO in 2007, made visible an invaluable cultural pole in the center of the province of Buenos Aires. Since then, that distinction is supported by the collection of volumes on Don Quixote treasured in the Ronco Library and the Cervantino Festival.

But that destination of greatness located at the crossroads of routes 3, 51, 60 and 226 had already been outlined more than a century ago, when the incipient industrial development went hand in hand with urban developmentsled by a handful of buildings designed with luxurious halls and ostentatious shapes.

To finish giving shape to this compendium of architectural styles In its maximum expression, the only thing missing was the imprint of Francisco Salamone.

The construction technician, architect and civil engineer born in Sicily in 1897 arrived in Azul in the mid-1930s and found in that semi-rural landscape in full formation the ideal place to express his particular conception of a habitable building or recreational space.

The modernist trend with the prevalence of art deco and the rationalism that identifies Salamone – in reality he applied a number of styles in his monumental works – shines, always imposing, in a dozen Azul public walks.

The most finished sample – probably his “total work”, according to the view of scholars of Salamone’s legacy – appears in the entrance to the Municipal Cemetery. To conceive this portal, built two kilometers from Route 3 – on the old road to Tandil -, the designer took care of creating both the buildings and the furniture, the lighting, the sculptures and even the surroundings of streets, avenues and gardens. .

The profuse display of striking pieces It is replicated in the geometric fountain in General San Martín Square – decorated with three models of benches, two types of street lamps, four flower pots and the white, gray and black floor of rhomboidal tiles – and in the remains of the Municipal Slaughterhouse. Until there, the walk connects three sites declared “National Historical Monument” in 2014.

Engrossed in the Public Works Plan promoted by the provincial Government since the inauguration of Manuel Fresco in 1935, Salamone took time to draw the sketch of the Daneri House, one of his few private buildings, to which he applied forms inspired by shipping architecture. The white walls of the two-story building and its rear semicircular balcony shine on the corner of Belgrano and Colón.

Salamone left other visible marks of his talent in the two towers and the mast on the front of the Municipal Park, the sculptures that represent Christ in the Via Crucis and in the Oratory of the cemetery and the disproportionate towers that protrude from the communal delegations and slaughterhouses of Cacharí and Chillar, rural towns of the infinite pampa environment of the Azul party.

The curiosity aroused by the tour incorporates a wide range of precise data and technical details in the permanent exhibition of the Salamone Interpretation Center, inaugurated in January 2024 in front of the Azul Cemetery. There are 25 original plans preserved there, which had been locked away for 86 years.

Those projects presented for the 1937 tender were neatly stored in a folder of the famous architect and were found by councilor Juan Louge in April 2023, during a review of the Municipal Archive.

Just as Salamone’s footprints can be seen in several cities and towns in the interior of the province of Buenos Aires, the work he left in Azul awakens the desire to discover forms and styles of avant-garde architecture that resist the passage of time.

This exercise of observation and learning extends in Azul beyond the works created by the most renowned cultivator of rationalism.

Along the circuit of historic buildings monumental images are noticeably attenuated. The harmonious lines of French classicism appear in the headquarters of the Italian Society for Mutual Aid and Philanthropy (relic of 1889), the PAMI subsidiary where the Blue Commercial Bank operated (from 1914) and the Petit Hotel that experienced its moment of glory in the 20s.

Los neoclassical elements fused with neogothic and neorenaissance details in the Federal Tiro (from 1895) contrast with the Spanish Renaissance façade of the Athletic Club, the neoclassical of the Villa Switzerland Retirement Center, the most recent geometric forms of brutalism applied to Banco Nación (from 1968), the superb French modernist appearance of the Malharro House (from 1918) and the colonial style preserved in the Enrique Squirru Ethnographic Museum, which operates in the corner without an ochava of the first “tall” house in Azul, built in 1854.

In that framework of stone giants, wrought iron, roofs, balconies, patios and gardens standing in the middle of the horizon of plains and hills, much of the pride of the people of Azulejos beats.

• From the city of Buenos Aires to Azul it is 306 kilometers through Riccheri, the Ezeiza-Cañuelas Highway and Route 3.

• Pullman General Belgrano semi-sleeper bus from Retiro to Azul (6 hours 15′), $20,000; sleeper car, $23,000.

• Hotel Paseo Bolívar: double room with breakfast, cable TV and wi-fi, $59,653; triple, $74,778; garage, $4,500 (02281- 15520362 / info@paseobolivarhotel.com.ar).

• Don Graziano Cabin: $15,000 per person, with dry breakfast, heating, wi-fi, satellite TV, kitchen with refrigerator, freezer and microwave, dishes, grill and wood stove (02281- 15655391 / dongraziano.azul@gmail.com) .

• Camping with dormies Refugio Boca de las Sierras: dormy for 4 people, $40,000; camping, $6,000 per person (includes tent and car); Guided trekking to Corral Indio (3 hours round trip), $6,000 (02281-15522400/refugesierras@hotmail.com).

• MTB bicycle rental, from $7,000. Guided outings are also organized (02281-15410059).