Francisco Salamone - Rauch City Hall

Francisco Salamone was an Argentine arquitect who worked in an art deco/futurist/fascist style and was active for just four years between 1936 and 1940. He was closely aligned politically with the conservative governor of Buenos Aires Province and got few comissions once he left office. During those four years, however, Salamone designed over 60 buildings in small towns in the southern part of the provice. He built city halls, cemeteries and slaughter houses [which, when you think about it are the three most important institutions, aside from the church, in small town provincial life].

I first became aware of Salamone's work looking at an exhibit of Esteban Pastorino's moody prints of his buildings. By coincidence my boyfriend and I went to Rauch the weekend after new years. It's a town that's exactly 12 by 12 blocks located 280km south of Buenos Aires. Every January 2nd there's a party for all the students back in town for the holidays [I posted some pics on my personal blog].

Like any cult figure, there's plenty of material online about Salamone these days; a flickr pool, a long post on skyscraper city, and a slide show on Clarin.