SYMPOSIUM FFRACTARQ 2004

Translation of Buenos Aires: Cuadrícula urbana y fractalidad bajo la luz de aspectos

sociales.

Text Author: Arch. Myriam Beatriz Mahiques

Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism of Buenos Aires. Ciudad Universitaria, Pabellón
3, Capital, Buenos Aires, República Argentina
Doctorand FADU. Subject. “Urban Morphology and Fractal Design”.
Director of Thesis: Dr. Vera W. de Spinadel
External Director: Dr. Nikos Salingaros
mbmahiques@hotmail.com

Buenos Aires: Urban quadrille and fractality under the light of social aspects
ABSTRACT

Investigations about urban form are developed in many directions, being the history branch the
strongest. It is based on the importance of forms created for previous generations. So, urban
morphologists must examine the inhabitants and the processes that origined the urban form. In
our discipline, ´´Epistemological Physicalism´´ is studied through the theory of complex systems
and chaos theory. The resultant shape is obtained by selecting some elements of the abstract
structure considered (non Euclidean geometry) and simulation software is used for
experimentation, like L Systems, Difussion Limited Aggregated, Cellular Automata. Then we
have to discover what is veiled at first sight and reflected in the optimal model for the
community.

INTRODUCTION

The concept of experiment presupposes the existence of a theory, without theory there would not
be experiment, only observation. The term "theory of the architecture" suggests a scientific
domain of the architecture whose intention resides in providing from dependability to the
theoretical foundations of the discipline.
The development of the contemporary science has generated theories that transform our
knowledge of the universe; they are taken by the designers and they are the starting point of the
formal exploration of the projects.
The investigations on urban form are continued in many addresses, being the historical branch
the strongest, based on the importance in the ways created by previous generations. Already, the
urban morphologists do not limit their attention to the form, but rather they also examine the
individuals, organizations and processes that have led to that form. The prevalence of the model
of Physics ("Epistemological Physicalism"), from a reduccionist conception, would not be a
correct way to carry out an investigation.
In our discipline, the Epistemological Physicalism is studied through the theory of complex
systems, under the theory of the Chaos. The resultant formal product is achieved by selecting
some elements of the considered formal abstract structure (Non Euclidean geometry: fractals)
and the experimentation is carried out by means of simulation softwares as L Systems, Difussion
Limited Aggregated, Cellular Automata. However, the results obtained, need of our intuition
and experience for an appropriate selection; then we will meditate which the appropriate pattern
for a certain collectivity is.
The rules preset in the software urge us to the "search of the truth" starting from diverse patterns,
we could find what at first sight is hidden. In this process, this technology is an useful experience
of thought.

THE CASE OF BUENOS AIRES

The form is relative to our record of it. We could suppose, for example, that planned cities, -
where the man imposes his geometry on the environment - are typically Euclidian, but this
posture is not verified when we change the scale again: in a satelital photograph we find that the
processes of social dynamic urban growth, denote extremely irregular borders; we come closer
and when observing the urban fabric, the Euclidean patterns of the original layout disappear
(read it as a limitless grid, a drawing in the land that ignores the geography of the place), and we
only see a three-dimensional fabric similar to a fractal.

In first instance, for an approach to the case of Buenos Aires, we could refer to professor Pierre
Frankhauser's works in the scientific aspects of the block morphology (1). Then, we will try to
demonstrate, why Buenos Aires is presented like an atypical case and it needs to be understood
with a reflexive, interdisciplinary attitude that allows us deviations and divisions in the
investigation.
Frankhauser settles down that the mensuration methods based on the fractal geometry, allow us
to verify to what extent the patterns of the real world show the hierarchical organizations and
where the ruptures of the same ones take place. For it, he starts from the most elementary
characteristics in the spacial distribution of built areas. The convenient modelization is the
Sierpinski Carpet, generated by iterations. The professor warns us on the results of the fractal
dimension, since they reflect the hierarchical organizations in a global way, according to the
number of their elements and not their position, which will be of supreme interest if it is
compared to the "lagoons" (patios, parks, squares). He also highlights the importance of carrying
out mensurations through the time, to evaluate the dynamics in the pattern's formation.
We could deduce that the analogical pattern of the Sierpinski carpet would be applied to any
urban conformation that is originated in a quadrille(2). however, the pattern based on the
Sierpinski carpet does not reflect the pattern of Buenos Aires in the barrio scale , because its
morphogenesis has been different to that of the European cities, due to geographical, social,
political, economic causes. The paradox resides in that Buenos Aires was inhabited
fundamentally by European. (3)
For experimentation, we have taken a typical block of the neighbourhood of La Boca del
Riachuelo, in Capital. The mensurations of the fractal dimension according to the box-counting
method has a value that reaches 1.80 (4). But, as professor Carl Bovill notices in his book
"Fractal Geometry in Architecture and Design", this dimension does not take into account the
overlappings.
The empiric observation accuses this question: under the roofs, we find intermediate spaces,
covered, semicovered spaces that superimpose in floor plans and in elevations, a fabric of
diverse materiality, crossed by pipes, clothes, cables that enclose even more the block heart and
leaves an extreme complex fabric.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND MORPHOGENESIS

In 1580, Juan de Garay carried out the second foundation of Buenos Aires, in the vicinities of the
Riachuelo de las Conchas, that assured appropriate water depth to the ships. The layout of the
future city, was carried out based on the Indian American system, a grid of 15 front blocks by 4
at the bottom. The appearance was rather a regulator design, where the low density forms of
semi-rural organization were dominant in the open fabric, including housing and vegetable
garden until advanced the SXVII. It is necessary to clarify that although the old maps define the
streets, the spatial habitat was very different, since the streets were of mud and they conformed a
continuum with the wetlands and the streams. That is to say, the block did not morphologically
exist, except in old plans.
The first dwellings were organized around patios, according to those of Andalucia, and
according to the "Pompeyan" type, also with successive, nested patios. The urban trace is
reaffirmed in 1608, and although it had a clear structure, the precariousness of the settlement
made the residents to settle in disorder, invading adjacent lands, forcing the Municipality
(Cabildo) to exercise the control of the buildings development. Architect Jorge Liernur attributes
it to the widespread uncertainty, the previous stadium to a consolidated project. By the middle of
the S.XVIII some precursor forms of the tenant houses were already known, and it was a
common habit to share the big family housing with several tenants and temporary guests.

In the census of 1744 there are already housings inhabited by 33 people, counting family,
servants and tenants (see Jorge Páez, 1970). With the fall of Rosas in 1852, Argentina begins a
process of "modernization and reorganization", where the immigrants contribution occupies a
fundamental place. As an example, it is enough to affirm that in 1661-1870, 159.570 immigrants
entered the country; between 1881-1890, 841.122 entered, between 1901-1910, the number
ascended to 1.764.101. The contingents were composed of Italian in their majority, Spaniards,
French, Englishmen, Swiss, Austrian, German, Belgian, Turks, and others in non significant
number. An unexpected phenomenon of growth and urban expansion took place, and it generated
a problem of accumulation and tugurization caused by the massive occupation of the old
dwellings and the emergence of the rental houses, then denominated "conventillos".
The conventillos consist on the grouping of cells (rooms), attached to the division walls
(medianeras) that had already begun to appear, with a long corridor that served from the entrance
to the patio, which in turn contained the kitchen and to the back, the common toilet. The growth
of cells is given by aggregation (5). We illustrate this concept with the synoptic table of three
properties of ends of S.XIX, located in La Boca, carried out by Marcelo R. Morales and Horacio
A. Paradela in their report "Conventillos. La Boca. Integration, manipulation and conflict"
(Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, University of Buenos Aires1999. Unpublished).

OLD BUILDINGS MODERN BUILDINGS

ADDRESS Brandsen 626 Palos 460 Suárez Brandsen 626 Palos 460
500/525
First floor 30 46 34 12 52
2nd floor 25 31 31 26 78
3rd floor - - - 26 74
TOTAL 55 rooms 77 rooms 65 rooms 64 rooms 204 rooms

Curiously, the society, independent of the many nationalities it is composed, also grows by
aggregation: at first, a few immigrants settle down, and then, on time, they keep on slowly
bringing their closest relatives.
This aggregation is not reduced to the domestic dwellings, but also to the industrial buildings and
in consequence to electrification.
“...la introducción de motores eléctricos aceleró la proliferación y el crecimiento de pequeños
establecimientos....Analizando la planta de Piccardo en 1908, no se registran signos de ningún
proyecto o plan que pueda haber presidido su evolución; al contrario, parece haber crecido por
agregación....Pequeños locales estancos se mezclan con locales amplios...Esta variedad y la
irregularidad tipológica que causaban los sucesivos crecimientos eran permitidas sobre todo
por la ubicuidad de las fuentes de energía”. (Liernur y Silvestri, in “El torbellino de la
electrificación”, El Umbral de La Metrópolis. Buenos Aires, 1993).
¨....the introduction of electric motors accelerated the proliferation and growth of small
settlements…Analyzing the floor plan of Piccardo in 1908, there is no record of signs of any
project or plan that could have preceded its evolution; on the contrary, it seems to have grown by
aggregation… Small fixed rooms are mixed with ample rooms…This variety and the typological
irregularity that caused the successive growth were mainly allowed for the ubiquity of the energy
sources¨. (Author´s translation)
And advancing in the text, corresponding to Artifacts, he also explains that ¨ “...la forma por
agregación de los artefactos se hacía hegemónica sobre el resto del ambiente...” (… the shape
for aggregation of the artifacts was being hegemonic on the rest of the ambiance…¨.)(Author´s
translation).

Amos Rapoport sustains that the domestic architecture shows its compositive character clearly:
"buildings inside buildings", he even considers the furniture and the fire like a primordial type of
"building" of independent evolution; it is possible to arrive to the scale of the material
component, its texture, etc. This spacial organization is similar to that of a fractal pattern. The
self similarity does not verify in the partial forms of our urbanism, but in the infinite succession
of identical patterns that goes from the macroscale to the microscale.

Let us observe a typical house of the neighborhood of La Boca: it is usually said that the forms
achieved by the carpenters coming from the South of Italy, resemble to their native houses and
they give the barrio the "italianizante" identity. However, we must consider that by the time of
their construction (SXVIII-SXIX) the isolated housings, built in wood and zinc sheets
proliferated in Buenos Aires, for their quick execution and the available materials: wood, zinc
sheets, disassembled parts of ships (6), remains of demolitions like doors and old windows, tiles,
etc. Obviously, we are before a true culture of the fragment that did not have to do with the
immigrant cultures, but with the consequences of the exercise of the political power, rescued in
the ideologies of hygienists and the real estate speculation. An invisible, omnipresent power that
evolved to materiality thanks to the sacrifice of its victims, the conventillos inhabitants, that
lived crowded and died in quantity for the ferocious epidemic of yellow fever in 1871, that
attacked mainly in the poorest neighbourhoods closer to the Riachuelo. ¨Cities -- at least the
most pleasant ones -- are fractal. Everything, from the paths and streets, to the shape of façades
and the placing of trees, is fractal in the great cities ……. Colonnades, arcades, rows of narrow
buildings with cross-paths all correspond to a permeable membrane with holes to allow
interchange -- this is one type of fractal.¨ (N. Salingaros, “Fractals in the new architecture”).

LAST CONSIDERATIONS ON THE ANALOGIC MODELS AND THEIR APPLICABILITY

Of what is previously exposed, it comes off that the applicability of the analogical pattern is not
to include all the cities with similar morphological patterns, and that it will vary according to the
period in which one works. We have seen that the plans do not reflect the spacial vivences, and
they should only be taken as starting points.
It will be looked for, therefore, appropriate modelizations of the tendencies in urban growth. A
preliminary proposal for the modelization of urban dynamics in Buenos Aires – in the Barrio
scale -, divided in three chronological periods, could be:
  Applicable models to dispersed, granular fabrics, with use of "noise" filters for a better
evaluation of the contrast among built and vacant areas. The mensuration of the fractal
dimension would correspond to the graphs of noise.
 Aggregation models that reflect the morphogenesis of blocks. The iteration models
would be optimal in the study of parcel subdivisions, product of real estate speculations
at the end of SXIX.
 Models that show major urban fabric openings, based on the Urban Planification Code,
(Analogous to the Zoning Code) that states for a typical block, not to exceed with
constructions the 25 meters, counted from the property line, in order to leave an empty
block heart. The investigations show that the current tendency in free perimeter tower
construction, generate openings in the compact urban fabric, with which the blocks
would be defined again by the property line, at the edge of sidewalks. Maybe in a near
future, in many neighborhoods, the optimal modelization would be the one based on the
city´s origins, supported with 3 dimensions, due to the diversity in heights. In our
experimentation, we worked we Cellular Automata, beginning with compact
configurations taken from aerial pictures from SXX. The results simulated the fabric
dispersion, similar to the one at SXVIII, and to some modern barrios where low houses
conglomerations are built adjacent to the free perimeter towers. This research is still in
process.

From the sociological-historical study we conclude that in our multi ethnic society, there was no
spatial disaggregation of collectivities, but they were melting in one along the years, a Babel
tower which phenomenom makes it very hard to define the cultures of the first collectivities
separately, through the architecture and urbanism. The identity has been achieved in their
iconography, mystics aspects, food, music, aesthetic details.
Actually, the current urban fabric of Buenos Aires is so complex, very irregular in its volume, in
spite of the rigid trace of its quadrille. It expresses a way of life, the social plurality, the back and
forward steps in politics and economy, the advance of spontaneous popular fabrics in
contraposition to the strict rules in the ¨Center¨. This is what makes of Buenos Aires an atypical
city, and quoting architect Clorindo Testa, what is interesting, when opening a window, we do
not know what we will see, with which landscape we will meet…..

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bovill, Carl. Fractal Geometry in Architecture and Design. Design Science Collection.
Birkhäuser. 1996
Bucich, Antonio. Cuadernos de Buenos Aires VII, “El Barrio de La Boca. La Boca del
Riachuelo desde Pedro de Mendoza hasta las postrimerías del siglo XIX”. Municipalidad de
Buenos Aires, 1970
Censo Municipal de Buenos Aires del 17 de agosto de 1887. Tomo II. Museo Mitre. 1887
Clementi, Hebe. Protagonistas de La Boca...un pueblo. Instituto Histórico de la Ciudad de
Buenos Aires. 2000
Frankhauser, Pierre. “Fractal Geometry of Urban Patterns and their morphogenesis”, en
Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society, Vol.2, pág.127-145, Université de Franche-Comté,
Francia, 1997.
--“The Fractal Approach. A new tool for the spatial analysis of urban agglomerations”
Gutiérrez, Ramón. Buenos Aires. Evolución Histórica. Talleres Gráficos de Escala. 1992
Liernur, Jorge F. y Silvestri, Graciela. El Umbral de la Metrópolis. Transformaciones Técnicas
y cultura en la modernización de Buenos Aires (1870-1930). Colección Historia y Cultura. Ed.
Sudamericana. Buenos Aires, 1993
Morales Marcelo R. y Paradela Horacio A. “Conventillos. La Boca. Integración, manipulación y
conflicto” (informe para la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Bs. As, 1999. Inédito).
Páez, Jorge. El Conventillo. Colección Grandes Exitos. Centro Editor de América Latina.
Buenos Aires, 1976
Planos de Buenos Aires Siglos XVIII, XIX y XX. Museo Histórico de la Ciudad y Biblioteca de
la Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo.
Rapoport, Amos. “Aspectos Humanos de la Forma Urbana. Hacia una confrontación de las
Ciencias Sociales con el diseño de la forma urbana”. Colección Arquitectura/Perspectivas, Ed.
Gustavo Gilli, Barcelona, 1978
Salingaros, Nikos. Fractals in the New Architecture, Archimagazine. Ed. on line
Spinadel, Vera. Microcurso “Fractales, Caos y Diseño Urbano”. (ICVA-1º Congreso Virtual de
Arquitectura).FADU, Argentina, December 1999 to January 2000.

NOTES

(1) Refer to “Fractal Geometry of Urban Patterns and their morphogenesis”, in Discrete
Dynamics in Nature and Society, Vol.2, pág.127-145, Université de Franche-Comté, Francia,
1997. Also “The Fractal Approach. A new tool for the spatial analysis of urban
agglomerations”. In these scholar papers, the closest example to Buenos Aires is the city of
Besancon (patrón D=1.81)
(2) In 1997 Frankhauser reports 20 metropolis analized at regional scale, based on fractal
patterns, mainly European. The research in the microscale have begun in the last years, being its
precursors Batty and Xie, who are supported by American data resources “Tiger” y GIS.
(3) The reference is strict for the planned city, we are not referring to the Indigenous population
that in Buenos aires have not constituted cities by settlements, as the Quilmes.
(4) The methodology was adopted following the premises of professor Carl Bovill, given that the
external figure that contains the boxes is a rectangle. We consider that the rectangle adjusts to the
majority of blocks and their profiles, giving this way more accurate results than the option of
square as an external figure. The dimension in autosimilarity includes the superimpositions, that
is why we adopt it in mensurations of cross sections and urban profiles (urban plots).
(5) The term calls out to fractals classified as DLA (Difussion Limited Aggregation), due to
their analogy with the particles in a solution, attracted by an electrod.
(6) The possibility of utilizing ships as a first dwelling, and-or their parts, is suggested by
archaeologist Marcelo Weissel, in “Había una vez un puerto”. El puerto en el Riachuelo y la
Arqueología del Rescate. Produced by the Instituto Histórico de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires.
1998

Typical block in the Center of Buenos Aires

and analogous fractal Four blocks in the barrio of La Boca
Current photography of the “Centro”. Behind,
to the lefts, a “chalet” on top of a high Interior fabric in a La Boca conventillo.
building. It is a typical case of aggregation Complexity in the small scale.