Buenos Aires has no beach, nor mountain, nor ten centuries old cathedrals, nor ancient ruins from lost civilizations. But, whit that je ne sais quoi so hard to define and sung by the poets, Buenos Aires makes you in love.

For visitors, it can be the tango, or the football, the beef or Porteño sociability; for us that inhabit the city, it is hard to know what makes it so lovable, despite the humidity, or maybe thanks to it. But we know there is something.

Buenos Aires has a history, even when it is not millennia old. It is the history of the people that lived, that dreamt, that, brick by brick, word by word and tree by tree, turned the city in what it is today. That mixed relation of an imagined territory–which received, as still does, internal and external migrations, which grew from the Center towards the neighbourhoods, adopting in the way different architecture and urban styles, which is scenario for conflicts and joy, with a thousand tunes and a thousand tastes– carries undoubtedly a complex identity.

It is not easy to tell where that identity lies or where to find it. Is it in the museums? Yes, for sure. In the monuments? Also. In the squares, fundamental in all neighbourhoods? In the malls, where people gather? Of course. And in the buildings, theatres, schools, baker shops, hospitals, Neighbours Associations, libraries, transport stations, factories, bridges, carousels… Actually, what is hard is to find something not related to the identity. We all make our cities every day; the places we inhabit, in the past or the present, are impregnated of the stuff that we are made on.

For all these causes, because Buenos Aires is all of us, and it is up to us to love it and care for it, Mi Buenos Aires Querible is launched. It is a website, an event, a game, a meeting place, a proposal and a compromise. Mi Buenos Aires Querible invites you to know our city more deeply, to suggest new important icons of the city, to get involved and protect the patrimony that belongs to all of us.

Also, Mi Buenos Aires Querible has a blog: Queré Buenos Aires. You are all invited to use it as a place for ideas exchange and debate.

Mi Buenos Aires Querible (in Spanish) — Queré Buenos Aires (in Spanish)

Esta entrada fue escrita el Jueves, Julio 17, 2008 a las 18:32 y esta en la categoría General, Neighbourhoods, Buildings, Festivals. Puede seguir los comentarios de esta entrada mediante RSS 2.0. Puede escribir un comentario, o trackback desde su sitio.