Disponible #9, "Chacarita Moderna" brings together archival documents, and the reproduction in the scale of pieces and textures from the cemetery, to revisit in the emblematic work of Itala Fulvia Villa, the appearance of a new funerary language. The mysterious ornamental motifs and the multiple textures of the concrete define a symbolic and aesthetic character.

Itala Fulvia Villa (1913–1991), as coordinator of the Architecture and Urbanism of the City of Buenos Aires, between 1949 and 1966 led the project and the direction of the work of the Sixth Pantheon of the Cementerio de la Chacarita. She was inspired by the precepts of the CIAM (International Congress of Modern Architecture, 1928–1957) that Le Corbusier dreamed of, on the one hand; and Jorge Ferrari Hardoy and Antonio Bonet, members of the EPBA (Estudios del Plan de Buenos Aires, created in 1947), on the other. She embodied urbanist ideals aligned with the modern movement.

In a post-war context where the population of the city of Buenos Aires tripled between the years 1920 and 1960, going from one million to three million inhabitants, the saturation of cemeteries became a need to attend to. The monumental project of the Sixth Pantheon proposes an underground typology of niches grouped in vertical rows for better use of the area and the release of airspace. In a break with the traditional funerary forms of antiquity, the underground organization allows the appearance of a garden that functions as a public park on the ground floor.

As you descend, a mythological experience in the underworld unfolds. A labyrinth between galleries is illuminated naturally, while the light enters filtered through different filters. The set of elements, together with the movement of lights and shadows, makes the tour a complete sensory experience.

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Léa Namer (France, 1989) is an architect and researcher, and since 2019, she directs the “Chacarita Moderna" Project.