Reinventing the city on the city: the case of La Boca in Buenos Aires

The agreement between the Department of Architecture and Design at Sapienza di Roma and the Faculty of Architecture at UBA in Buenos Aires is part of an intense and fruitful joint research activity born from a previous collaboration later formalized with the signing of the Executive Protocol of a Framework Agreement in 2015. The scientific cooperation involves continuing further with the studies and the exchange of knowledge and experiences on the themes of design for the existing city, with particular reference to the degraded parts adjacent to the historic centres of Buenos Aires and Rome. For well-known reasons, the cities of Latin America– unlike, for example, cities in the United States – present a structure and therefore problems that, with all the appropriate distinctions, are similar to those in Europe. By overcoming the short-sighted vision of the Old World’s presumed primacy in the matter of urban regeneration, forms of synergy and scientific collaboration, inspired by mutual enrichment and therefore by the advancement of knowledge on the level of theoretical and operative practice, can be activated. If we address the knowledge of the individual disciplines in the field of recovery, restoration, and urban design, we are still likely to find, in European and Italian culture in particular, a greater level of specific deeper analysis; however, if we look at the results and the modes of approach of the policies carried forward in certain situations in South America, we can realize how those experiences bear an added value that pertains to overcoming a sectoral vision, and therefore to the ability to put synergistic actions into play, with an inclusive, cross-cutting gaze that often lies at the origin of the success of many operations carried out in these recent years.