The neighborhood of Parque de La Tablada

A worker housing project during the Buenos Aires government of Manuel Fresco (1936-1940)

Abstract

During the first half of the twentieth century, housing began to acquire a growing importance at the hands of the “State Controller”. The beginnings of this theme were laborious and even peripheral; the needs and changes in the urban landscape - in the heat of the industrialization process - were variable and the houses took a notorious centrality. Some social actors paid attention to this problem, since the tenement houses were frowned upon and began to imagine housing projects where decorum and hygiene are values to consider. After the economic crisis of 1929, the role of the State throughout the world began to grow and the Province of Buenos Aires was not exempt from it. In the Buenos Aires government of Manuel Fresco (1936-1940), workers' housing became important and projects began to be legislated, such as that of the “Barrio Parque de La Tablada”. This project should respond to local needs and fulfill a double objective: to conceive a housing complex in the Matanzas context - so close to the Capital - and build a housing model with a productive, modern and hygienic matrix. This project should be the mainstay to articulate a public policy of greater encouragement and respond to the experiences of Buenos Aires workers: a public policy of social housing.