In January 1944, an earthquake reduced the province of San Juan, Argentina, to rubble, leaving perhaps ten thousand dead and one hundred thousand homeless. In The Ruins of the New Argentina, Mark A. Healey argues that the disaster and the massive rebuilding project that followed transformed not only the province but also the nation. The earthquake was a shattering and galvanizing experience, an indictment of the old social order and an invitation to transform it. From the nation’s capital, an obscure colonel in a recently installed military regime launched a relief campaign and rapidly commissioned plans to rebuild the province, especially its capital city. The campaign was a rousing success, launching the public career of its director, Juan Domingo Perón, who would soon found a movement, reach the presidency, and transform the politics and social structure of the country. Dreaming and building the new city became the landmark project for a generation of modernist architects and planners, as well as an enduring challenge and controversy for local residents and the Peronist state. By exploring the struggle to rebuild, Healey shows how this destroyed province played a crucial role in forging, testing, and ultimately limiting the Peronist project of transforming the nation.
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Acronyms
- Introduction
- Part 1: Revelations Among the Ruins, Early 1944
- 1. ‘‘Rooted Vines and Uprooted Men’’: The World Wine Made
- 2. In a Broken Place
- 3. ‘‘The Measure of Our National Solidarity’’: The Aid Campaign and the Rise of Perón
- Part 2: The Cornerstone of the New Argentina, Early 1944
- 4. Utopias in the Dust: Architects’ Visions for the New City
- 5. The Superstition of Adobe and the Certainty of Concrete
- 6. Looking for Order among the Ruins
- Part 3: From Leading Case to Exemplary Failure, Mid-1944 to Mid-1946
- 7. Diverging Paths of Reform: Architects, Labor, and the Reconstruction Council
- 8. The Revolt of the Engineers: Protest and the Professions in 1945
- 9. ‘‘San Juan Is Still Waiting’’: Rebuilding and the Election of 1946
- Part 4: "Rubble or No Rubble, We Want Peron," 1946-1962
- 10. Against the ‘‘Sovereignty of Experts’’: Rebuilding on Local Terms, 1946–1947
- 11. ‘‘The Pacification of Spirits’’: Peronism in One Province, 1947–1955
- 12. The ‘‘Bulldozer Kid’’ and the Rebuilt City, 1955–1962
- Final Reckonings
- Appendix: Government Spending in San Juan
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
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