A Gold Time: The Summer Houses in the Bonaerese Suburbs. The Quinta Sere´s Case

Abstract

The aim of this work is to analyze the Quinta Seré’s case (Morón, Buenos Aires) from the point of view of the archaeology of the landscape. We will focus on the ways that space and architecture become the means to communicate messages of power and status. The case Quinta Seré wasn´t an isolated case, but it was included in the same process of the peak in the building of high class´s summer country houses in the suburbs of Buenos Aires at the beginnings of the 20th century. This process can be understood if we analyze the social, politic and economic conditions Argentina went through at that time. We´ll analyze the formal configuration of the mansion, its location and its relation with the surrounding space, the inner articulation of its space, its social function, its visibility and its possibility of becoming visible, the pattern of movements and the ways to get into it. The integration of material records and print sources gave us the possibility to see that the building and the organization of the landscape had an intention from the builders/users who attained to send a message of power and status.