Francisco Salamone

Francisco Salamone (1897-1959) was an Argentine architect who between 1936 and 1940 built more than 60 municipal buildings with elements of Art Deco style in 25 rural communities on the Argentine Pampas within the Buenos Aires Province. These buildings were some of the first examples of modern architecture in rural Argentine.

Born on 5 June 1897 in Buenos Aires, Salamone was one of the four sons of an architect from Catania, Sicily. After leaving Otto Krause Industrial School in Buenos Aires he continued his studies in the National University of Córdoba where he graduated in 1917 with a degree in architecture and civil engineeing.

Salamone married the daughter of the British Consul in Bahia Blanca with whom he had four children. He became a good friend of Dr. Manuel A. Fresco, a conservative politician who was governor of the Province of Buenos Aires during the period 1936-1940. During Fresco's term of office a large number of new municipal buildings were built and the roads, irrigation and communications networks in the province were largelly improved. Although many of the new buildings were of little aesthetic value, those that Fresco commissioned Salamone were a notable and very personal combination of Art Deco, authoritarianism, functionalism, Italian Futorismo and propaganda on a vast scale. The use of reinforced concrete made it possible to construct buildings to a height that at that time made them symbols of municipal power and authority.

The rural towns in which Salamone's buildings appeared were 500km or more from Buenos Aires city, and were either frontier towns, built at the end of the nineteenth century on the edge of Indian territory, or were situated at regular intervals along newly-built rail links. These towns were named after the colonels and generals who led the Conquest of the Desert and engineers who pioneered the building of the railways in this part of the Province.

Town Hall - Coronel Pringles

Salamone's work comprised three types of municipal buildings:

• Town Halls: these are characterised by their massive proportions and high tower, taller than the local church tower, to symbolise the advance of civilisation over the Pampas and recalled both the medievil palazzi comunali and the designs of Mussolini's Italy. These buildings were clearly intended to be the centre of urban life. Examples are to be found in Carlos Pellegrini, Alberti, Carhué, Guamini, Adolfo Alsina, Laprida, Rauch, Balcarce, Tornquist, Puán and Coronel Pringles.

• Cemetery Portals: these were also characterised by their massive proportions. Examples can be found in Saldungaray, Laprida, Azul and Balcarce.

• Slauterhouses: these are functional in design, on the outskirts of towns, and have became obsolete with the introduction of modern butchery techniques and the advent of cold-storage plants. Examples can be found in Trés Lomas, Balcarce, Carhué, Coronel Pringles (whose tower is in the form of the blade of a knife), Azul, Laprida, Vedia and Carlos Pelegrini.

When Fresco's term as Provincial governor came to an end in 1940, Salamone and his family moved back to Buenos Aires, were he designed just two more buildings in Rationist style. He died on 8 August 1959, relatively forgotten, but leaving behind him a monumental architectural inheritance on the Argentine pampas.

References

• Alberto Bellucci, Monumental Art Deco in the Pampas: The Urban Art of Francisco Salamone, J. Decorative & Propaganda Arts, Argentine Theme Issue, 1992.

• Photos and opinions by Leandro Aguirre

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