La casa

Manuel Mujica Láinez

2 ideas

1. Mansion on Calle Florida narrates its demolition

   A mansion built in the 1880s on Calle Florida, Buenos Aires's elite street, tells its own story in first person as workers tear it down in the 1950s. Across roughly seventy years it recounts how the aristocratic family that built it declined through dissipation, bad marriages and loss of fortune. The street turns commercial around it, and the house ends as a doomed relic that no heir can keep or wants.

2. Buildings as witnesses outlasting their owners

   Telling a family history from the point of view of its house turns people into temporary occupants and the structure into the lasting memory. Rooms, furniture, portraits and statues hold what the family forgets or hides, so the physical setting keeps the record the people cannot. Decline shows up as material evidence: furnishings sold off, rooms shut up, surfaces left to decay.

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