BACK TO TOP

PHOTOGRAPHY

OTHER PHOTOGRAPHIC FINDINGS

PORTEÑO VISUAL HERITAGE

12.3 x 17 cm / 4.84 x 6.7 in albumen print. Photograph mounted on a rigid vintage cardboard measuring 15.2 x 20.3 cm. Work in good condition. It is displayed framed.


If there are buildings that can be considered emblematic of that nineteenth century Buenos Aires, one of them was undoubtedly the monumental work popularly known as "Customs Taylor", near the Government House.


As a political reaction to the Argentine Confederation after 1852, the State of Buenos Aires, in one of its most significant achievements, erected a monumental and modern building for Customs use, inaugurated in 1857. The prestigious British engineer and architect Edward Taylor (1801-1868) was its creator.


That mass comprised a set of architectural structures; the main was semicircular in neoclassical style that advanced over the river, composed of a ground floor and five stories high that ended in a 25-meter tower that navigators perceived from miles away.


The entire building was perfectly functional for its purposes since, from its front base a long wooden breakwater of 300 meters long started with several rails, foxes, wagons, winches and cranes to facilitate the transfer of large packages of merchandise from the ships up to fifty-one stowage warehouses.


The work functioned as a magnet for photographers specialized in views of its time; the white building with its monumental arches was documented from all angles, that is, from the dock itself known as the loading dock, the nearby passenger dock, also focused from the Paseo de Julio, etc. etc .. That stamp of Buenos Aires progress was sold in photographic studios -also in some bookstores- as a single sheet and at the same time it was an inevitable image in the conformation of albums about the city of Buenos Aires. Samuel Boote's camera was one of the most assiduous in his recording and even appears in his great panorama -made up of five parts- of the city taken from the river, taken around 1882 (Mateo Goretti Collection).


However, this record is completely unknown to us and, in our opinion, it is the closest shot on the front of that building, which allows us to better appreciate its structure precisely a few years after its demolition in 1894 to give way to the works of the new port. The evident state of deterioration indicates its next end; for example, the loading dock no longer works and the breakage of two of its arches on the right wing of the second floor are significant signs. Excavations and successive recovery works have rescued part of this architectural heritage that can be seen today in the Museo de la Casa Rosada.


We are definitely a heritage photographic work to collect.



S.O.VI-DGL

AUTHOR FOTÓGRAFO NO IDENTIFICADO

Are you interested in selling some works?

Send us an email briefly indicating
which works you intend to put on sale, and we will respond. click here

Subscribe to our newsletter to be updated.

Check our Newsletters