LOS EUCALIPTUS

JUAN seems to always have something new, and something inspiring he's working on. Having spent the last few months releasing the first issue of CORRESPONDENCIA, he is now knee deep in the second. Somewhere between the two he made the decision to open up his living space and office in Buenos Aires to host workshops, book exchanges, and film projections. Alongside these things the space is also a permanent library featuring the publications Juan both works for and loves.

LOS EUCALIPTUS

"The 1941 construction by Juan Kurchan and Jorge Ferrari Hardoy (designers of the famous BKF or Butterfly chair, with Antonio Bonet), is located in Belgrano, the area which these architects described at the time as the "Garden neighbourhood, whose inhabitants tend to lead freer, sportier lives." For this reason they avoided the most common solution of wedging in a compact building block, and instead locating the building at the back of a lot. In order to get permission to do this they used an irrefutable argument: to protect the aged trees that dominate the property. They incorporated three eucalyptus trees within the same structural volume, in a fusion never before seen in Buenos Aires, combining architecture and nature, about which Ferrari opined, "Perhaps the most important quality, that stands out the most, is the composition of its facade; when night falls the light shines through its windows, in close-up the trees blow in the wind. All of this means that we can say something not often repeated about this building: it has poetry."

In contrast with the usual occurrence of buildings destined for being rented, this building was destined to construct a community, with its large park, reading room, restaurant and communal laundry room. The utopian characteristics of the project greatly responded to the powerful influence exercised by Le Corbusier, with whom both had collaborated in the mythical Rue de Sevres atelier, following the model of the Unité d'Habitation of Marseille.

The apartments were sold with furniture that they had designed specially. This integral universe involved guidelines and instructions on modern living; radically anti-conformists, it all pointed towards the critical refounding of ways of living."