Leisure Coast City

Abstract

*** NOTIFICATION *** With reference to this thesis, I express my debt to Dr. Sonia Berjman’s numerous and pioneer publications on Buenos Aires landscape history, which were not only inspiring but also the basis of my analysis of Courtois, Bouvard, Thays, Carrasco brothers, Forestier and other landscaper’s works in that city. This chapter 4 would not have been possible without her researches and the sources, ideas and relations that she has brought to the forefront. I apologize for not having given her proper credit in the original thesis text. I further state that Dr. Sonia Berjman ’s book Benito Javier Carrasco: sus textos. (Facultad de Agronomía. Universidad de Buenos Aires, 1997, 258 p.) has been - in a great part - the source basis for my article ‘La Costanera Sur de Buenos Aires. Borde y horizonte de la ciudad’. In: Public Art in Urban Design. Vol. 11, 10.2008, pp- 30-40. http://www.ub.edu/escult/Water/water11/Water011.pdf p. 65 . I regret not having given her proper credit in the printed and web publications. Agustina Martire *** ABSTRACT *** The urban waterfront is in the spotlight. During the last decades harbour facilities have been moved away from urban centres. Projects for the recovery and restructuring of obsolete industrial areas by the water are sprawling all over the globe. The process of recovery of the urban waterfront that takes place currently began more than a century ago with the discovery of the urban waterfront as a space of leisure. Waterfronts, as urban spaces, have followed a development signed by different conflicts than those of the rest of the city. On the one hand, they have been spaces especially open to intervention, for their location created little conflict with the social order of cities. On the other hand they have been conflicted spaces regarding the struggle between the installation of harbour facilities and leisure spaces, linked to jurisdictional problems between national and metropolitan authorities. The use of the urban waterfront as leisure space was different in Europe and in North and South America. In most of European capitals the waterfront was occupied by harbour facilities, and due to commercial expansion, these spaces were growing and became segregated from urban space. This process did not allow the development of leisure areas on the waterfront. On the other hand, in North and South America the waterfronts became spaces of opportunity and the development of harbour and leisure space was contemporary and flexible, giving an important role to landscape on the waterfront. The cases of Barcelona, Chicago and Buenos Aires appeared to be the most suitable for the analysis of this phenomenon. They appear as models for other waterfront cities throughout the western world. Incidentally they were also hosts of international exhibitions in the period between 1870 and 1930. This project studies the issues of these spaces with an analytical and critical view, searching for primary and secondary sources to evaluate the use of leisure in the projects for the urban waterfront and the way this has been practised in three particular case studies. The reciprocal influence between leisure activities, urban design and mass events are analysed as a main backbone of this research.