With aerial scanning scanners, the
National Library
digitized more than 300 original plans of the building, declared
National Historical Heritage
and designed by architects Clorindo Testa, Francisco Bullrich and Alicia Cazzaniga.
Thus it became one of the few institutions in
Latin America
with this equipment that allows recording and preserving materials
in "depth."
This is a technology that generates a solid, high-resolution image on large format materials and allows for deep scanning, so you can
record paintings and works of art
.
The process of working with these plans took 4 and a half months, since, explains Ignacio Gaztañaga, head of the Microfilming and Digitization Center, "they were
50-year-old plans, made of already aged vellum paper."
The source added that they were at the
Clorindo Testa Foundation
and had to go to the Library.
In total, a total of 302 plans
were digitized
(some more than
2 meters long
) identified as "project" and "project and facilities" plans.
Little window.
From the National Library, National Historical Monument.
Photo: archive
The equipment, two meters long and 1.60 meters deep, scans aerially and
reproduces textures
of works of art where the plot and brushstrokes can be appreciated, the source added.
The most complex challenge that this project faced was designing the
logistics
for transferring the plans from the Foundation to the Library, which took the form of 14 deliveries using 20 cm diameter cardboard rolls.
Clorindo Testa.
Famous Argentine architect.
Photo: Lorena Lucca, archive
The completion of this process of digitizing the plans was formalized with the meeting of
Joaquina Testa, daughter of the renowned architect
, and
Julio Suaya,
executive director of the Clorindo Testa Foundation.
The next work to be carried out with this equipment will be the digitization of the map library and paintings in the institution's treasure room, located at Agüero 2,502, in the City of Buenos Aires.
In addition, the double-sheet newspapers found in the newspaper archive will be digitized.
A concrete cruadruped
The National Library building is an icon of the
brutalism
movement , the most extreme expression of the modern architectural movement.
Testa said that the idea was to locate the book deposits underground to make room for the plaza that the State wanted to locate on the surface.
In addition, this way the books would be protected from light and that space could be expanded without having to close the place to the public.
Without the weight of the deposit, the rest of the library was raised and supported by thick columns.
The
"legs" of the "quadruped"
, according to Testa.
The headquarters is a key example, one of the most popular, of brutalist design.
It was built from a project by Clorindo Testa and his colleagues Francisco Bullrich and Alicia Cazzaniga,
after winning a national competition in 1961
.
And it took
3 decades
to finish.
The brutalist architectural trend expanded between 1950 and 1970. "Brutalism", the word, comes from the French term
béton brut
(raw concrete), which was spread - like few others - by the Swiss architect
Le Corbusier
, priest of simplicity.
It is based on the exaltation of geometry, “intervened” with ravines and openwork, and the appearance of non-sumptuous materials.
With agency information
J.S.