On my third day in Buenos Aires I did a tour around the National Congress building. Janis told me about it, helpful in this as in much else. It is free. Note: you need to bring your passport.
The tour guide, Soledad, dances tango. She works in the Congress kindergarten in the morning and does the tours in the afternoon. She is a great guide - friendly, helpful and informative.
I love hearing from and talking to guides in buildings, cities and museums. The way a guide takes you round somewhere reminds me of the way people dance - they all approach it differently. Some tell you the stark facts. Or, what you learn can be idiosyncratic, told often through stories and filtered through the personality of the guide. Some do both.
By chance it was a personal tour as there were no other visitors that day. The neoclassical building, its decoration, history and current significance is, if you like these sorts of things well worth seeing.
The National Congress houses the Argentinian government which is split between the Senate (representing districts) and the Chamber of Deputies (representing the people). The main gate is only used for certain rare state events such as a visit by another head of state, funerals of previous presidents and the inaguration of a new president. On another day I went to the inauguration of President Macri but a day or two before had walked with Janis past the Congress which is very central and seen severe damage to the gates. Janis discovered that a van had taken the corner too fast and ploughed into the gates with tragic, fatal results. I was not as surprised as I should have been. That morning I had walked past a car not far from where I was staying. The window had been smashed for theft. Then on one of the main avenues I saw a road sign of motorway magnitude, the type that extends over a road from the side. It had just crashed on to the middle of the road presumably in the strong winds. By some miracle it appeared not to have hit a car. There was not a pattern to these things but they did not feel entirely unrelated.
The palace was built at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century. Designed by an Italian, the interior is made with different types of stone and wood, imported in many cases from outside Buenos Aires, even from Europe as was typical at the time. It is rich with ornamentation in many forms particularly stained glass and decorative tiling
There is symbolism everywhere:
The stained glass ceiling in the middle right of this collage is a metaphorical representation of Argentina. The chandelier in the blue room was (fortunately) lowered for cleaning. It is richly symbolic representing the different provinces of the country and key figures from history. I think I remember that even the bulbs were shaped to represent wheat, part of the country's wealth. You can see in the top right photo that renovation continues. The central photo shows a monogram for the library of Congress. It all used to be open to the public but the most publicly relevant part of that collection has been moved to a building in the square outside Congress, still open to the public. The homeless community in that plaza now pile up their mattresses on the window ledges outside. The Congress library inside the palace holds tracts relevant to the work of government. The library itself was designed to be warm and relaxing and it feels like that. It is shown below in the bottom right.
The top photo of those above shows the Chamber of Deputies. Soledad told me that up if I looked carefully I would notice that some of the desks had modesty panels installed at the time when women wore (possibly had to wear?) skirts. It was a lovely touch. The pink room is the anteroom in which Eva Peron used to meet with the women she worked with. I was lucky to get to see it. The original chair covers are underneath these loose covers and are much nicer.
Other (better!) photos of the Congress building and interior.
I was brand new to Buenos Aires and as yet unused to how people are with one another so I was struck with how warm Soledad and her colleagues were. All of them said hello and kissed one other. I do not think it unrelated that she persuaded colleagues to open doors for me that were locked. And yet it did not seem at all that this affection was utilitarian. It seemed to be just a warm, easy and nicer way to go about life. Most of us, especially from northern climes are not as used to the public embrace as they are in say Argentina. I asked her about it. "Oh, it’s normal here", she said. "But they are my colleagues. We all get on very well but we do not necessarily see one another outside of work." This was confirmed by one of my hosts. "Oh yes", said Josefina. She has only been to England only once, briefly but her English sounds as though she has spent a lifetime listening to Radio 4, enhanced by a relaxed colour to her conversation. "We kiss each other all the time but it doesn’t mean anything." I think she meant it’s not personal. Juan couldn't be doing with all the kissing but then he is reserved and correct in the loveliest way and always seemed an unfathomable mix of Argentinian and something else I can't quite place.
It makes me wonder if "it not being personal" is perhaps tangentially connected to Gavito’s comment. I thought often in Argentina about how things are and how things seem. A fragile and rickety bridge spans that gulf. When things are not or may not be as they seem, people thereafter prefer to avoid risk. They protect themselves however they can. Trust seemed to be a significant issue there - in politics as much as in the interactions between people. I noticed it in small features of daily life and talked about it with locals.
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