An emotional symbolic hug was given to the deteriorated Santa Fe Post Office building

Thursday 27.6.2024

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Last update 15:38

An emotional and massive symbolic hug to the Correo Argentino building in the city of Santa Fe took place this Thursday morning. The emblematic heritage building is located on the block between 27 de Febrero Avenue, Mendoza, Falucho and Rivadavia. A restoration and refunctionalization of its structure has been awaited for more than three decades. The years go by and the deterioration is increasing. For this reason, different organizations and institutions in the city decided to repeat that first symbolic embrace of the building, carried out 20 years ago. While awaiting a decision on the matter from the National Government, some 350 Post Office employees continue to work daily inside the building, as well as other workers from different agencies such as the Ministry of Equality, Gender and Diversity of the province, ANSES, the Ministry of Women of the Nation, the Immigration Office and the provincial General Sindicature.

On June 17, 2004, a hundred architecture students, teachers and representatives of various organizations carried out that first symbolic hug to the Post Office, alerted by its visible deterioration. From then to date nothing was done to preserve it.

The Argentine Post Office building in Santa Fe was designed 65 years ago by architects Spencer and Finkbeiner. It is one of the most valuable exponents of modern Santa Fe architecture in addition to being located in a strategic area of ​​the provincial capital. The lack of maintenance and the successive changes of use aroused the concern of the citizens and their representatives about the state of abandonment in which the building is located. Hence the symbolic embrace this Thursday, demanding urgent actions for its preservation.

The building is a heritage site of the national State, which for decades has ignored its restoration and recovery. With this, in recent decades it fell into alarming deterioration. With the naked eye and from a distance you can see the deterioration in question. Destroyed exterior brisse-soleil, walls stained by humidity and large holes where there used to be little venetian blinds. Inside things don’t change. “We ask for the enhancement not only for the preservation of the building but also for the 350 workers who inhabit it daily, because we need to preserve the integrity of all telepostal workers,” says Néstor Belloti (Foecyt), representing the workers. “The ailments they suffer are very important, due to the total lack of maintenance of the building. They suffer from it when it is cold, when it is hot and when it rains.”

“In Argentina, between 1935 and 1955, a modern architectural movement, also known as functionalist rationalism, emerged. The former Post Office building is an example of what that architecture of the Second Post World War would be like,” explained in another article to El Litoral the architect Luis Müller, professor and researcher (FADU-UNL), PhD in Architecture and expert in architectural heritage.

“The Post Office building is an architectural type of very pure and concrete volumes,” he said in that other article signed by Luciano Andreychuk. It has a horizontal plate and then a vertical body that play in two volumes; its geometry very studied,” expressed the specialist who this Thursday was part of the symbolic hug.

The sun warmed up the cold and windy morning of this Thursday when a large number of people gathered in Alberdi Park. They were neighbors and members of different institutions and organizations of the city concerned about the Post Office building. They set up a stage with sound and seats so that children and adolescents from different institutions could perform songs related to the event, while another group of boys and girls danced on the stage.

During the event, there was a declaration of interest from the Municipal Council and a joint document signed by different participating institutions was read. The musical and ballet interventions were carried out by the music schools No. 9900, 9901, 9902 and the Provincial Ballet Seminar. Before carrying out the symbolic hug, the verses of the Argentine National Anthem were sung.

“Since 2021, the Post Office building has been cataloged by the Municipality of Santa Fe as a heritage asset,” highlights the president of the College of Architects, Victoria Alconchel. For this reason there is “the obligation that it be protected, because it is of great importance among the buildings of the city.”

“It is a very noble and flexible building that enables multiple uses and activities, which today are clearly reduced to their minimum expression,” Alconchel summarizes. “Today it has many pathologies that were warned by the architects. We see those detached windows, humidity and water leaks, the detachment of its coating, it is colonized by pigeons, among other problems, so it is not in a condition to be inhabited.”

After the speeches, it was time to cross the Falucho road from Alberdi Park on foot and start holding hands in a row to embrace the Post Office building to ask for its preservation.

The College of Architecture and Urban Planning District 1, the Ombudsman’s Office, the Municipal Council of the city of Santa Fe, the Secretariat of Culture of the Santa Fe Municipality, the Chamber of Senators of the Province of Santa Fe, the FADU -UNL joined the event. Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urban Planning. National University of the Litoral, FAD – UCSF. Faculty of Architecture and Design. Santa Fe Catholic University, CIE. College of Specialist Engineers of the Province of Santa Fe, the CPT. Professional College of Senior Construction Masters and Technicians of the Province of Santa Fe. District 1, INTHUAR – Institute of Urban-Architectural Theory and History. FADU – UNL, the IHTCAP – Institute of History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Heritage. FAD – UCSF, the Santa Fe Postal and Telecommunications Workers Union, the Urban Architectural Heritage Commission MCSF and the Secretariat of Urban Development and Water Management MCSF.

Present on behalf of the city councilors were its president, Adriana Molina, and her First Vice President, Jorgelina Mudallel; along with councilors Carlos Suárez, Leonardo Méndez, Saúl Perman and Silvina Cian.