The Beach Front (la rambla): Reality, Promise and illusion
of Democracy in Today’s Montevideo.
From Ann-Christine Wöhrl’s Montevideo (2003)
El hombre ya se sabe que está aquí,
condenado desde el nacimiento
el hambre no le importa,
la engaña con un sueño1
As the title of this conference suggests (“negotiating the streets”), and as Henri Lefebvre has reminded us, space—and the urban space in particular—is not a given, not a non-human, non-historical fact of nature, but an artifact, a social and historical product2. It is a product both in physical terms (as it is made of materials, forms, textures, motifs) and in terms of the uses, social functions, and meanings we allocate to or associate with that space. This social production of the public space (its forms, its uses, its meanings) as well as the cultural practices and institutions that are built upon it, in turn, are also the result of the interaction, negotiation, and conflict between social groups and cultural projects that exist and are part of any given society and national culture. As David Harvey3 and others remind us, the city becomes “a place of contest” (Orum and Chen 19) and “a window for understanding not only urban life, but for also understanding the new forms and avenues for class struggles” (43).4
Sometimes this negotiation takes an open, conscious, verbally and politically articulated form. For example, a group of citizens organize to promote or to demand the construction of a particular kind of locale; or to protest the construction of a highway, the modification of a square, the demolition of a historical site; or to ensure that a particular place is properly shaped and furnished. Another group vindicates their right to access and make other use of a given place. Yet another seeks and manages to produce a certain meaning and narrative vis a vis a particular site. Sometimes, such groups act in a very organized fashion, other times less so, with the result that the production of space in the latter cases is more an effect of their spatial practices5 and other cultural practices that gradually alter the character (the form, the function, the meanings) of a particular place, than of deliberate and conscious intent. In these cases, such negotiation and struggle is not so explicitly expressed and articulated, nor is it the sole product of an action or a process taking place in the present by distinct and clearly identifiable groups, but rather is the result of an accumulation of negotiations, habits, rituals, etc. that may well have been taking place over a long period of time. Architecture, landscapes, urban fabrics are, in this sense, a sedimentation and crystallization of that process of negotiation and struggle within a given national culture, a particular civilization, and the very history of humankind.
Moreover, spaces, particular places, and spatial practices are an indirect by-product of social, economic, political, cultural institutions, processes and discourses not directly committed to or interested in a particular urban outcome and form. Nevertheless, architecture, cities, and man-made landscapes in general are also in part the result of such discourses.
Furthermore, and conversely, the urban artifact plays a part in our own constitution as persons, in the formation of our culture, and in the things we do and the way we see, imagine, and act in the world. Because urban spaces and spatial practices are not only a result but also a foundation, a matrix, and cultural instruments or tools, the city is as much our product as we are the product of a city. Thus one can speak of “the power of place”6, that is, of the important way places shape—and sometimes govern, to a certain extent—our existence and way of life.
Photo by Oscar Bonilla
So, as we try to understand the way societies “negotiate their streets” and their cities—which is a way of negotiating the place and role of various human groups and actors in society, the nature and quality of their lives, and so on—we may either focus upon a particular social mobilization around the spatial implications of a particular urban question, or on a particular urban phenomenon understood as a work of art or archaeological finding that has “a story to tell”: that is, as an artifact and “material text“ that expresses, in a coded language (the language of architecture and urbanism, the visual language, the language of textures and sensations, the language of the body and its presentation in public, the language of social interaction) a particular society and culture. And part of the story it tells—which then becomes our job to decipher—is that of a cultural and historical drama wherein the negotiation of public space by various groups, classes, ethnicities, genders, and cultural projects produces the formal qualities, uses and meanings of their space as an aspect of a larger cultural and political emancipatory struggle.
Like works of art, moreover, public spaces not only express the culture that produces them, but also the cultures that recognize and embrace them as valuable meaningful artifacts, and that therefore make them, somehow, part of their own culture, times, and worldviews. As social actors we construct ourselves—as well as narratives of ourselves and of the world—in relation to the environments and artifacts, material as well as ideological which we live amidst. In this sense, urban forms, places, buildings, spatial practices and the “immediate” environment also play a role and serve as stepping-stones for cultural, discursive and ideological production. The relationship between the spatial environment and us is not, ironically, precisely immediate insofar as we relate to it in ways that are culturally and discursively organized, mediated, and framed. This obliges us to reconstruct and make use of a series of discourses that work as contexts to our text, and often as interpretative keys as well.
Now, when it comes to offering an explanation or telling the story of the ways in which a given society lives, shapes and negotiates its streets, it is possible to limit oneself to the level of the articulated discourses—the verbal discourses, and in particular, the visual. But one should not forget that there are other equally important ways in which people relate to and inscribe themselves in the world, which may be harder to bring to the surface, and harder to articulate logically and verbally. Thus Edward T. Hall’s emphasis on the silent grammar7 implicit in the way we use space and the social and cultural meanings we give to space; Fredric Jameson’s assertion that space can be and in fact is ideological8 (and therefore may be the object of an ideological critique); thus, too, Terry Eagleton’s insistence that aesthetics is also ideological, and Yi-Fu Tuan’s preoccupation with the ways certain places—especially those thought to be sacred, aesthetically sublime, or symbolically dense—give us certain comforts and help us organize our sense of the world and of ourselves in it. And last but not least, so too with Aldo Rossi’s notion that the city itself is a text—and a palimpsest—and that its architecture (forms, types, details) contains, evokes and reveals “something else”. This notion of architecture as standing for something else (a shared experienced, a sedimentation of culture and social praxis, a collective sensation, feeling and memory) is most notably explored in Rossi’s classic The Architecture of the City9, and is further pursued in his essay An Analogical Architecture10. Here Rossi cites Carl Jung:
“Logical” thought is what is expressed in words directed to the outside world in the form of discourse. “Analogical” thought is sensed yet unreal, imagined yet silent; it is not a discourse but rather a meditation on themes of the past, and interior monologue. Logical thought is “thinking in words”. Analogical thought is archaic, unexpressed, and practically inexpressible in words.11
Rossi’s use of the “analogical” (which seems related to the Lacanian pre-linguistic Imaginary, that is, that stage prior or outside the Symbolic or linguistic order) works to our advantage insofar as it locates the analogical in the architectural, urban and territorial form (our first mother and womb), thereby opening the way for us also to explore, interrogate and speculate about the analogical and ideological value of certain spatial practices, places and forms—or, in Winifred Gallagher’s terms, the way certain places in our lives got “under our skin” (Gallagher 127) and become part of our flesh and bones.
2.Why focusing on la rambla.
Having arrived at this point, I would like to say a few words, first about what made me think of la rambla as an artifact or text that needs to be “looked into” and “talked about” in this way, and then move specifically about the ways in which I believe la rambla expresses a process of “negotiating the streets”, but also the city, national culture, its polity, its destiny, and so on.
First of all, I want to propose that la rambla is a product, a sign, and a site of a social and cultural struggle to democratize and transform the city, to improve the quality of life of the popular classes, to cope with today’s problems and penuries, to enhance and celebrate the public space as well as the space of the public, and also to resist and turn around a model of development12 that is dehumanizing. To say that la rambla is a site of struggle means that there are contending social groups, contending cultural projects, each trying to impose its views upon the city, and upon the way the national society and culture is organized. To say that la rambla is the product and the sign of that ongoing struggle also means that we, as a society, need to be able to see the extent of our partial victories and of our partial defeats, to recognize both the errors and the merits of our projects and the means we have come up with to achieve them. This struggle did not start today, and it is not over: it is ongoing, and if anything, more crucial than ever today.
Montevideo’s Leftist City Government (1989-2004) has reinforced a popular vision of the city and of the public space in general—of which la rambla is a key component. This was not, however, a period and process devoid of defeats and aggressive assaults from private interests, nor exempt from its own errors, hesitations, ambiguities, and contradictions. More importantly, as the struggle goes on and nothing is irreversible—more so these days when everything seems to be confusing, fragile and up in the air—it is necessary not only to stay the course of reform, but to defend and consolidate what has been achieved. This is going to be something of a challenge particularly in light of the impact of the crisis of 2002, which has shaken the lifestyles and mindset of the middle-classes, and sunk a third of the population into poverty and many into outright indigence.
In this critical conjuncture emergency measures are required to help some people get and keep a decent job, proper housing and health care, and education is needed to escape from indigence as soon as possible. However, as we work towards a progressive, popular and democratic reorganization of society, a sound urban initiative and policy, of which la rambla must be a key component, is equally vital to soften the crisis, to counter-act social disintegration and misery, and to maintain certain vital and fundamental social and cultural provisions, coordinates and structures. “No solo de pan vive el hombre”, as the saying goes in Spanish, meaning that a society is obliged to create some cultural preconditions, venues and tools to meet even its most elemental needs.
For various reasons that will become clearer as my argument unfolds, la rambla remains a most valuable social and cultural asset and instrument, in just these respects, especially for the popular classes. Much of its centrality has to do with its aesthetic, ideological and symbolic work, that is, its capacity to offer a rich and fulfilling experience; to anchor—that is, to function as a signifier and foundational sign for—a series of narratives and cultural projects; and to represent and stand for something else (as a metaphor and metonymy) both encapsulating and symbolizing Montevideo’s essence, spirit, and most cherished values. Thus, la rambla often serves as a symbol for Montevideo and national culture as a whole, as in the following expressions of an immigrant’s memory and longing:
There are so many reasons why we emigrate and yet, paradoxically, they are the very same ones for coming back. It is hard to avoid the common places: one looks at la rambla and repeats to oneself that it is not going to miss her—and this is something that has to do with a nostalgic romanticism that is part of being a Montevidean, and I could say the same about its dark streets at night and their tenuous yellow light—and yet, it does happen13
Likewise, la rambla acquires—or rather, it is endowed with—supreme explanatory powers, becoming something like a cipher or aleph for the entire national culture and history, as in the following excerpt from a piece of touristic literature:
If you are looking to explore the city’s past, present and future, the rambla is the ideal place. It’s also a great place from which to appreciate the city’s architectural diversity, charming landscapes and, above all, get to know the Montevideans and their way of life 14
Much of la rambla’s capacity to evoke, condense and explain has to do with its character as a supreme “public space”:
Every time I think of the public space I imagine parks, squares, splendorous avenues. I believe that many may share the same feeling with me, at least as starting point. For modern culture the place that best represents public space in our imagination, without having to think too much, is Paris. The quais with its many stores, the boulevards with their cafés full of people, the Luxembourg gardens with its chairs. Other places that also come to my mind with little or no effort are las ramblas of Montevideo, any of the many crowded and noisy open markets of Mexico City’s barrios, the people skating at the Rockefeller Plaza.15
What makes la rambla such a place, such an emblem? What accounts for its appeal, charms and powers? Why is it a site of such massive social gatherings and symbolic struggles?
Part of la rambla’s capacity to perform such symbolic and analogic functions has to do with Yi-Fu Tuan’s notion that for “space” to become a “place” it has to have visibility16, i.e., a certain clarity of structure and form, and a particular composition, series of motifs and textures, which enable us to form a clear image and leave a strong impression in our minds (Space and Place, 17, 172). Moreover, following Kevin Lynch17, as a border, shape, and contour, la rambla helps us to construct a clear mental scheme and image not only of itself but also of the entire city—Montevideo’s own imageability (The Image of the City 9)—something that is also emotionally reaffirming, fulfilling and stabilizing. Its geometrical, geographical, and topographical quality—recognized, learned, memorized and internalized as we look at it, part-take in it, or walk and drive through it—also contributes to the capacity of la rambla to provide a sense of order and direction, an imago mundi, a meaning to everyday life, a structure of feelings, a sense of identity. This is further enhanced by la rambla’s roles as scenario of dramatic mass gatherings and spectacles and as a major urban axis and ceremonial grand entrance to Montevideo. Thus, la rambla is often chosen as a way to encapsulate an idea and a feeling for the city (with the added value of hiding and silencing that which we don’t feel comfortable hearing or talking about).
In contrast to the Anglo-American “urban waterfronts”18 (such as in New York, Chicago, Toronto, or Boston), la rambla’s capacity is not based solely upon its image and shape but also in the sensations it produces, which are the product not only of distinct and pleasing visual experiences, but experiences involving other senses as well. Indeed, a space becomes a place when it is able to provide strong and varied bodily and social experiences, massive as well as intimate (appealing to the senses, the sentiments, the intellect, etc.) that in turn generate powerful and lasting sensations, emotions, thoughts, desires, memories. Those experiences, in turn, help us to organize and structure our personal history, and our sense of belonging to a culture and of being in the world.
Inversely, because of our experiences at la rambla, we believe and feel that it is a special place in our lives, a place with a character and will of its own—Christian Norberg-Schulz calls it the genius loci or “guardian spirit of the place”19 (Genius Loci 18). When such distinctive experience of la rambla is shared by many, the spirit of the place becomes the spirit of the community, and the place acquires a sacred character, becoming a ceremonial center, symbolically connected to a transcendental totality, a bigger entity—either physical, social, or psychological—in any case, something believed and felt very deep inside, or existing above, before and beyond anything else. Because of being sacred, the place is owned and can only be modified by the spirit that governs it—or its representatives. In the powerful gratifying experiences la rambla provides, it anchors and offers tangible and aesthetic grounding for our mental stories and beliefs, in the same way a temple, with its unique spatial qualities, figurative icons and rituals, gives credibility to its religious narratives and gods. Thus, la rambla becomes monumental and, as such, a central component of the local and national pedagogy which is inscribed and reproduced by the city.
Much of la rambla’s visibility and imageability (its capacity to give an image to the city), sacredness and powers, are related to its social and cosmic theatricality, which in turn connects to our very sense of identity. Indeed, la rambla is a public space where we become visible to ourselves (for it “returns” an image of ourselves as when we stand in front of a mirror), as well as to others, as on it we perform a series of public rites within a larger social drama. This has to do with a particular way of experiencing and privileging the urban and the public in Mediterranean cultures, and the interconnectedness between the private and the public (Pitkin 98-99), as opposed to other cultures where life and identity depend more on an intimate relationship with the suburban woods (as opposed to urban life) and the private and the intimate realm of the home (as opposed to the public scene).20La rambla is one of our central public stages, a place where we produce, (re)present, and act out an image and a sense of our self. Our selves (our personas), therefore, are highly dependent upon our entrance onto this stage (or in relation to it), the role of the other dramatis personae and the public. As it structures and sustains the self, taking part in this kind of public place becomes a matter of being and not being, of being included or excluded, visible or invisible, indeed, a matter of sanity and madness, of life and death.
In addition to its role as a theater of social life where we can shape and act our character and become the personas we are, part of la rambla’s power and persistent appeal also derives from the basic environmental qualities of the seashore and the sheltered cove, and the meanings and roles that such environments have historically play in national culture (we will return to this when we talk about the symbolic place of la rambla in the spatial-cultural system) and the very history of human kind:
[...] its geometry denotes security, its openness adventure [...] water and sand receive the human body that normally enjoys contact only with the air and the ground [...] Could it be that our earliest home was a sort of Eden located near a lake or the sea? (Yi-Fu Tuan, Topophilia 115-117)
So, again following Yi-Fu Tuan (and Carl Sauer’s Seashore—Primitive Home of Man?) at la rambla we do not only become social beings and ourselves, but more importantly, there we become human, and we humanize ourselves, especially in a world and in a time that pushes us in the opposite direction.21
Plaza de Trouville
3. Purpose and plan.
Assuming, then, that la rambla constitutes a cultural and political negotiation of the street (and through it, of the city and nation) that has a story that needs to be interpreted, decoded and told, my purpose in this essay is to pursue four parallel, yet interconnected and complementary, argumentative lines. Firstly, I discuss la rambla as a fetish and provider of various material and spiritual goods and services, thereby confirming the cultural uses of the city, and the notion of the city as a resource—particularly in a time of crisis and scarcity. Indeed, la rambla appears as something like a safety net, in terms of recreation, the acquisition of certain goods, and also the satisfaction of many desires and needs, including the maintenance of certain rituals and myths instrumental to the preservation of the self, the national identity, and a view of life and the world.
Secondly, I explore la rambla as a semiotic surface wherein many conflicting narratives of national culture and progress intersect and collide—hence our notion of it as a site of symbolic struggle. Here, I reconstruct three discursive articulations of la rambla such as (a) an Arcadian discourse centered around Uruguayan exceptionalism and grandiose Past, (b) a Developmentalist or Diffusionist discourse which exhibits la rambla as a sign of success and participation in capitalist Modernity, and (c) a Utopian discourse which offers la rambla as a “promise” and as evidence that, even if contained, an alternative cultural model is possible: one organized around values of a social control of the public space, of public beauty and the beauty of the public, of a more balanced relationship between Culture and Nature, of social inclusiveness and conviviality, of democracy and egalitarianism.
This polysemy leads us into a third question: the place of la rambla within the spatial structure and dynamics of the city, and the way it contributes, socially, symbolically, and psychologically to that process. In such dynamics la rambla is sign of a stalemate between two projects of Montevideo, and it stands as a suture, happy medium and gateway between the Old Center and the new urban centers, apparently welding and bringing together a city with a tendency to fall apart. It also serves as a way out from this mundane contest by turning itself into a kind of dramatic exit: a return and an escape into the sea and whatever lies beyond the horizon, into the mother’s womb, into nothingness, into the evolutionary ladder, or back to the ships that brought almost all of us to these shores not that long ago.
The fourth and last issue I raise here is that of la rambla as a double-edged sword and a smoke screen. A double-edged sword in that it stages new kinds of social, aesthetic and urban imbalances, conflicts and problems. A smoke-screen in that as image and representation of the entire city it may hide and make us forget the other side of the image: the monstrous character of the Uruguayan mode of production and the city which exists, breathes, and swells only a few blocks away, north of la rambla. So even if it is valuable social asset, it also serves as a way of “marketing an illusion”.
a. La rambla as a provider: Re-enacting “el país de las cercanías”22 (the country of social proximities).
In a society where wealth is unequally and unreasonably distributed, and where private wealth is a luxury beyond the reach of most citizens, the city’s places, textures, furnishings, and opportunities of every kind become a source of many goods and services—those intimately imagined and yearned for as well as those sensually pleasing and materially required. This is particularly true with la rambla, which, in addition to being located in a sublime natural site has become one of the preferred residential destinations for the middle and upper classes, as well as a cherished gathering and recreational place for the popular classes themselves. As these factors have led to a massive allocation of public resources and private investments—in housing, apartment buildings, streets and sidewalks, infrastructure, squares, promenades, boardwalks, restaurants, clubs, theaters, and so on—this further reinforced la rambla as a place of pilgrimage and valuable public good.
Photo by Mora Olaso in Ann-Christine Wöhrl’s Montevideo (2003)
Most individuals and families cannot acquire for their private enjoyment many of the things one associates with good life, such as ample spaces, beautiful architecture, landscapes and sights, carefully crafted proportions and textures, noble materials, terraces and gardens, parties and spectacles, social encounters with members of all classes, leisure activities of every kind, as well as a sense of plenitude and calm, of intimacy with the wonders of nature, of ownership, power and pride, in sum, a wide range of exquisite aesthetic and spiritual experiences. However, the city, and la rambla in particular, function, precisely, as a public venue—open and available to all—to meet many of these needs and desires. It is a primary source of leisure, social life, sports, health, pride, beauty, marvel; hence, a vital ingredient for the cultivation and enrichment of the self and the urban society as well.
Indeed, Montevideans go to la rambla to take a walk, to walk the dog, to meet and gather with friends, to sit on the boardwalk, to enjoy a drink, un mate amargo, a cigarette or an ice-cream, or to relax and be by themselves as the sun goes down and the moon rises to preside over the night. They enjoy looking at the architectural landscape, at each other —the passers-by, the swimmers, the sunbathers, the beautiful near-naked bodies and the not-so beautiful that remind us of the nature of flesh and Time—or simply enjoy looking into the seemingly endless horizon, the open skies, the approaching and menacing clouds, the terrifying lightning. They enjoy letting themselves be caressed—and amazed—by the smell and the whispering of the waves and the seagulls. Other than merely looking, smelling, or feeling the sun, the breeze, the sand and the water in one’s body, la rambla is also a place for romance, for conversation, for giving or attending a concert, for making love, as well as for practicing a myriad of sports, from beach-soccer to swimming, including running, roller-skating, skate-boarding, biking, playing volleyball, sailing, and many more. The rambla is fully equipped for all these and more.
Rambla del Cerro, West of the Bay of Montevideo.
From Ann-Christine Wöhrl’s Montevideo (2003)
Equally important, la rambla gives—or rather, returns—a sense of both actual and symbolic popular ownership of the city, which is quite the reverse of any and all expropriations of the public realm (as well as of small private holdings) by an increasingly narrow dominant fraction within the hegemonic bloc. This is why la rambla, together with other public spaces, also functioned as a symbol of a democratic re-appropriation of the city23, playing, for example, a key role in these discourses which animated people’s thoughts and souls in their struggles against the dictatorship of the 1980s (once, the great usurper that filled the streets with patrolmen and handed the city to the developers and the real estate speculators) and for the reestablishment of the people as the legitimate and true sovereign.
As a site where people gather, and a site of the people, la rambla performs other social, analogical and mythological functions as well. For one, it gives support to the myth of Uruguayan integration, civility, and relative homogeneity, under the reign of an extended and historically hegemonic middle-class. La rambla plays such a role by being one of the scenarios where Montevideans “perform”—and can exhibit, for all to see—the drama and the myth of their conviviality, integration, and social proximity. Jorge L. Borges would call it a Festspiele: “vastas y errantes representaciones teatrales […] que requieren miles de actores y que reiteran episodios históricos en las mismas ciudades donde ocurrieron”24. As we all participate in this collective drama, to an extent, this represented reality becomes social reality—very much like in that same story—a true and vivid experience, to the point that it can even become—by picaresque means—a true venue for cultural diffusion and acculturation, for social integration and even social and political mobility. And such performatively created truth remains at least partially true and effective today, especially among the youth, the elderly, the working class, and the unemployed, who also make their appearance at and lay claim to la rambla, in spite of all the growing class divisions, social fragmentation and impoverishment. In spite of these imbalances, la rambla still performs a social compensatory or homeostatic role by providing what most of us cannot get otherwise. In this sense, la rambla does confirm Uruguayans difference, originality and exceptionality, that is: “como el Uruguay no hay”. Moreover, as the national and global socio-economic situation worsens, and more and more people can afford less and less, the centrality of la rambla’s role increases, provided that it remains open to all, a necessary precondition or “spirit of the place”.
Indeed, there are few things more sacred to Montevideans than the fact that whatever is on or near la rambla and the urban beach front is public property, accessible to all, and that cannot be privatized and colonized by private investors, except in the milder form of very limited and restricted State-controlled concessions to some private entrepreneurs. The city government not only guards this sacred right, but also facilitates access to la rambla by subsidizing collective transportation, by extending la rambla all around the southern edge of the city, and by struggling to limit—or revert—growth so as to keep la rambla at a walking distance. Indeed, even if in different degrees all the parties involved—public and private, upper class and lower class, young, middle-aged and old—have historically understood the social, cultural, political and ideological importance of la rambla as a sacred place, a people’s place, and a public good (and not merely a middle-class and upper-class residential strip). Lastly, in many respects the city and la rambla—the same as Downtown forty years ago, or the Plaza Matriz one hundred years ago—are the visible and tangible side of the State itself, and taking care of la rambla is about enhancing, turning sacred and celebrating the Public (la cosa pública) and Democracy itself, in discourse as well as en especie (in material and experiential terms).
Rambla near Plaza Gomensoro c. 1940
Photo Nº7522 Centro Municipal de Fotografía (Montevideo, Uruguay).
b. La rambla as provider of a sense of time and historical direction.
Much of la rambla’s importance and popularity stems from the fact that it is a rich and polyvalent signifier, one that can be appropriated and used to substantiate and articulate many diverse and contradictory cultural discourses in circulation within the national culture. For example, it stands as evidence of Uruguay’s grandiose historical and cultural Past, “the good old days”, when Montevideo saw itself as the Athens of the River Plate, the Switzerland of America—that is, an European city in South America. In fact, la rambla is a major capital investment, a successful work of art, and an exquisite social institution. For some, this creates the illusion that one still dwells in that everlasting Past—even if besieged by all kinds of present antagonists and threats—or even worse, that one can actually turn back the clock, and return or recreate that Past.
While few or none of the original buildings and urban elements of that era remain, and la rambla’s face and skyline is greatly changed (even if there remain many structural and cultural continuities as well), there is a logical historical connection between la rambla and the Past. For one, la rambla was conceived, designed, and built in the first part of the 20th Century. That was a time of great, and above all, visionary statesmen—who built a city for the future25—and of a national accumulation of capital resulting from the political and economic success of the country, of a strong and active Welfare State, and of its successful redistributive policies, which resulted in the expansion and relative empowerment of the middle-class and the working class. La rambla is a pearl of that Golden Age. We still appreciate and enjoy it as a fine piece of urbanism, architecture and landscaping created by our grandparents and great-grandparents, of their vision, wisdom, and sense of beauty, of ethics, and sacrifice. Indeed, Uruguayans can and must be credited with having been able to use its wealth (its land, its public funds) in a way that was not excessively economistic, utilitarian, and reductionist; one that saw the social and cultural value of investing and embellishing the city, of carefully planning and crafting its urban proportions, textures and shapes, of furnishing the public realm and making it available to all. So, in this sense, looking backwards to that futuristic culture in search of answers, guidance and inspiration does have some merits and offers some suggestions for solutions to our present problems.
However, one potentially reactionary implication of this Arcadian vision is the assumption that we have evolved in the wrong direction, and that in contrast with a successful Past we find ourselves amidst a Present characterized by paralysis, distortion and decay. Even if ironic at times, much of Borges’ backward looking work—a sensibility shared by many of his present readers—expresses this nostalgic longing for the Past as embodied in the shaded sidewalks, old patios, calm streets, quiet gardens and personal libraries of the end-of-the-century villas. Today to support this claim of decay one might point at the way the poor and the lower classes—the darker skinned, the juvenile delinquents, the adolescent prostitutes—have taken over la rambla’s corners and beaches, the way speeding cars and heavy traffic have altered its atmosphere, character and rhythm, the way real-state and financial speculators have demolished almost all the original residences and palaces, replacing them with rather vulgar, pretentious high-rises (needed for accommodating a larger upper and middle class), ruining the city’s skyline and bathing the sandy beaches with a horrendous 5 PM shadow. In other words, the Present is not as good as the Past.
Rambla Pocitos c. 1925
Photo Nº 1443 Centro Municipal de Fotografía (Montevideo, Uruguay).
Such Arcadian articulation of la rambla, however, creates a false image of the Past from a handful of postcards and still standing urban motifs and old residences (Thereby, conveniently trashing other postcards or forgetting other equally material realities). Those other postcards from 1917, 1925, or as above, taken in 1930, testify that dense crowds and heavy traffic are not something new at la rambla, and some original buildings, such as the emblematic Hotel de los Pocitos—a massive building, demolished half a century ago, that intruded into the beach and water—were an architectural, urban, and social disgrace. Horses also must have been a nuisance, as were such customs from earlier times as bathing and swimming fully clothed. Finally, it is also worth remembering that if there were some quarters of Montevideo that looked affluent, cultured, developed, convivial, white-European (that is, not poor, mestizo, or underdeveloped, which is supposed to be the Latin American “look” or estereotype) this was by no means the complete story but rather a fiction that we—as a nation, as citizens—wanted to tell in order to present ourselves in public and accepted to believe. Behind that narrative, and indispensable to it, was a time of profound disparities, exploitation, exclusion, suffering and political repression. The few upper-class palaces and villas that were la rambla’s architectural component offer testimony of a much more exclusive—in the sense that it excluded other classes—and much less democratic place when compared with the more middle-class and popular character of the place from the 1960s onwards.
Rambla de los Pocitos c. 1938
Photo Nº 7189 Centro Municipal de Fotografía (Montevideo, Uruguay).
An Arcadian reading of la rambla may give us a satisfying and rewarding image of our Past, but also an invented, incomplete, and highly problematic idea of it; more what we would have liked to have been than what we actually were; indeed, an oligarchic vision of it. So, if we desire to return to that warm and cozy place which never existed, or only existed for a privileged few, we are bound to go after an impossible dream, and make all kinds of foolish—if not monstrous—mistakes.
Another flaw of a backward-looking discursive articulation of la rambla is that it hides or tends to ignore the many flaws of dependent, reformist capitalism itself (la rambla being a spatial product of and an element within this cultural model): including and especially its structural limits and unsustainability given the small size of the economy, the fluctuations of the international capital, the pressures of the global powers; the logic and tendency of capitalism itself towards the concentration of capital (and the production of workers and a reserve army of unemployed and cheap labor); the lowering of costs (including salaries and benefits); the maximizing of profit (the private appropriation of value); the need for larger and larger investments, expansionist wars, fascist dictatorships, and so on. So, in a sense, that very same glorious Past also was the one that led to this less than glorious Present, when the city is now fractured, and Montevidean society more divided than ever, polarized and with large sectors disintegrated, sunken in poverty and/or forced to emigrate.
A developmentalist or diffusionist take on la rambla, on the other hand, would argue that la rambla of today is an improved version of the original. For a diffusionist, la rambla is the result of an effective modernization, that is, of our capacity to engage with a changing world. La rambla is the sign of our modernity and proves that we can adapt to change and to new trends, that we can actualize our modus vivendi to be in tune with metropolitan culture, that we lack nothing and have nothing to envy. It demonstrates that we are capable of creatively and daringly addressing the needs and challenges of today, such as rapidly leaving or accessing the city, of more effectively using a valuable (profitable) piece of real estate, of capitalizing la rambla’s image and reality to attract businessmen, partners, investors and tourists, and in sum, that we are full and proud members of Western Civilization and the Capitalist World (a theme which has guided and obsessed statesmen, developers and common folks alike, from Sarmiento to the current political and cultural establishment).
La rambla’s modernity is thus signified by the number of high-rises with their ample windows and balconies (an index of economic activity, of investments, of value, of wealth, of an expanded and enriched middle-class); of imported automobiles (new models, higher speeds); of services and shops (restaurants and cafés, movie theaters and boutiques, bookstores and newsstands, ice-cream shops, supermarkets, shopping malls, five stars hotels, etc.); as well as by its trendy architectural styles and refined urban textures and patterns, its overall tidiness and cleanliness, its services as a venue for all kinds of mass-mediatic events (fireworks, rock concerts, automobile races, marketing campaigns, etc.), and its provision of a more relaxed social and cultural environment in terms of clothing, public behavior, including a more emancipated and irreverent public use of the body (something that greatly differs from the much idealized first half of the 20th C). In this version, then, la rambla is appreciated not for what it was, but for what it is today: a successful story not only of the Past but mostly of our Present culture, for all to see and rejoice in. Today, when one is at la rambla, or is taken to la rambla, or takes others to la rambla, one inevitably cannot but conclude that it is one of the best urbanscapes on earth, that modernization is both possible and desirable, that we are on the right course, and that we need to irradiate this Modernity to the rest of the city, country and continent.
Such discourse, obviously, rests upon a very uncritical view of both modernity and diffusionism. With regards to modern architecture and urbanism, it certainly has not processed much of the critique of the Modern movement. For example, it does not respond to the way many modern residential types and buildings (such as the small apartment, the high-rise, the compact and crowded residential block) in many cases lower the quality of dwelling and of the public space, creating shadowy streets, wind tunnels, lack of human scale, loss of privacy, homogenous sights, excess garbage, etc.; or the way some forms of land occupation (as in the free-standing building bloc or island-house) have caused the disappearance of the sidewalk and the corner, and the death of street life—with all their social and cultural implications—thereby making the city less “familiar” and more estranged and hostile26; or the way modern architectural typologies, formal repertoire and techniques ignore and are unable to recognize the accumulated wisdom, values, memories and culture embedded in some traditional shapes, typologies, ornaments, technologies, materials, and even landscapes.27 The developmentalist reading of la rambla is likewise unable to see the losses of architectural and urban values (formal as well as in terms of its uses, poetics and meanings), particularly in the way the transformation of la rambla into a highway and urban scene organized around the automobile changes the entire perception and experience of la rambla—for pedestrians as well as for the pedestrians-turned-car drivers—altering its texture, light, atmosphere, scale and rhythm28.
PLATE 6
Pocitos c. 1964
Photo Nº 10.446 Centro Municipal de Fotografía (Montevideo, Uruguay).
Indeed, a mixture of real estate speculation, Modernist dogma, mindless importation of lifestyles and cultural patterns, and mere disregard and foolishness have given way to a rambla characterized by an almost total elimination of the Past, loss of historical memory, and by the creation of all kinds of geographical, spatial, and semiotic absurdities and contradictions (Una ciudad sin memoria 74-75)29.
This uncritical Modernity celebratory discourse is equally unable or unwilling to recognize that capitalist development—of which la rambla is a by-product—is often made at the expense of the well-being and the quality of life of others (and of other quarters of the city), thereby aggravating urban imbalances and polarization, and creating conditions of poverty and social conflict. Thus, not only in spite of but at least in part because of its modernity, Montevideo as a whole becomes emptier and acquires a decaying and ruinous aspect. Thus we encounter the paradox that the more we develop and the more modern and fully integrated with the global economy we become, the more unequal, segmented, and poor Montevideo becomes.30 As a consequence, more people flee to the lower middle class coastal strip (Ciudad de la Costa), or are forced to relocate in the city’s impoverished peripheral areas (of the north), or worse still, in the more than 300 urban “informal settlements” (asentamientos irregulares, they now call them: when they were fewer we used to call them cantegriles) which have mushroomed in the last decade (pretty much all over the city) and which are oblivious to the most basic and logical urban regulations, and absent of the most basic urban infrastructure, furnishings and services. In search of its many goods and pleasures, these poorer Montevideans too come to la rambla. But for them la rambla is also a site of informal trade, unskilled low-paid employment (as maids, construction workers, porters, private guards, policemen, etc.), beggary, vagrancy, petty-theft, prostitution, and crime. This structural contradiction reveals diffusionism as not only undesirable but also unsustainable, shortsighted and self-defeating.
If la rambla as sign of the good old days created a distorted idea of the Past, la rambla as sign of a modern present that needs to be celebrated and continued lacks the minimal awareness of its flaws, and of the problems it has caused and is still generating.
Finally, though, in contrast to both a backward-looking discourse, and to a market-oriented developmentalist one, la rambla can also be interpreted as proof that a different—alternative—future is possible. This Utopian reading of la rambla corresponds, to a certain extent, to a Leftist vision and project for the city and the public space. While sharing some features with the other two discourses in that it highlights those aspects of la rambla that are successful—certain positive values and principles, certain uses, social relations and aesthetic experiences—it does so by opposing the present and limited reality of la rambla to the Past and to the Present of the city as a whole. Even if a “work in progress” la rambla is almost by definition offered as a departure from the Past. Likewise, as an exception to and escape from the modern developmentalist city, la rambla is already out there for all to see and enjoy. In this way la rambla becomes an exemplary place, providing a series of guiding principles, a vision (of what can be done, of what can be), and a sense of direction.
A key feature of la rambla as Utopian discourse is the extent to which its presence affirms and vindicates a capacity for human beings (either from below or by making use of the State) to steer changes and make qualitative improvements in the city—and in society—towards desired directions, and according to a series of values, principles and set goals (such as the common good, greater pleasures, etc.), as opposed to a view of change as a by-product of the market or the downstream effect of inevitable global forces and trends. Some espousing the latter view today would like to see la rambla, particularly the area south of the driveway and closer to the sand and the water, “developed”, that is, turned into an exclusive resort area, a fancy tourist spot, a non-place31, a large multi-purpose shopping mall, with towers, five stars hotels, casinos and all, modeled after the old Hotel de los Pocitos, and many modern resorts and “waterfronts” of today’s world. The Utopian take on la rambla, however, is less about increasing economic activity and profit-making, and more about preserving and honoring its sacred (national popular democratic) character, making la rambla available to all and developing it as a site of public recreation and enjoyment. The construction of a series of shopping malls (Punta Carretas, Montevideo Shopping), Trade World towers, McDonald’s and Sheratons, a couple of hundred meters away from la rambla, but not any closer, are thus a sort of compromise and stalemate which testify the balance of power in the current state of affairs.
Hotel de los Pocitos c. 1930
Photo Nº 3824 Centro Municipal de Fotografía (Montevideo, Uruguay).
Conversely, those holding to a Utopian vision of la rambla can point to the elimination of private operations that have proven to be intrusive and disruptive of the public space, or that contradicted the natural and socio-cultural environment: for example, the prohibition against parking at la rambla, or the passing and enforcement of certain elementary rules geared towards greater conviviality. Likewise, and in the same spirit, public action and funds have been invested in the project of extending la rambla, widening the sidewalks, furnishing both the sidewalk and the sand beach itself, slowing traffic by means of pedestrians crossings and lights, creating a series of distinct facilities (skating rings, biking tracks, children playgrounds, etc.) and even granting a limited number of concessions to private business (mainly a handful of bars and restaurants) in order to accommodate more people, to allow for an increasingly diversified use of the public space, and in general, to support a feeling of freedom and actual ownership of the place and of self that one experiences at la rambla. Lastly, it is well and widely understood that la rambla is a valuable asset and instrument for personal (human) and social development—and a provider of many things in times of all kinds of anxieties, miseries and needs—and that, therefore, it needs to be well maintained and further enhanced.
Another quality that differentiates a Utopian vision from a Modernist one is that the former understands the contradictions present at la rambla as systemic, structural contradictions, and therefore acknowledges the need to address them by looking into the political-economic roots of Montevideo’s growing fracture, disintegration and polarization, and at the city-region as a whole. (The Modernist—it was argued—see the problems present in la rambla as signs of insufficient Modernity not as a result of it: of the unequal, contradictory, and Faustian nature of the development of Capital).
Overall, however, la rambla remains a site and a sign of an old and yet ongoing spatial struggle, offering material proof and support to many contradictory discourses, visions and projects—something that contributes to its capacity to attract and appeal to all. And this is also what gives la rambla a heroic (at times romantic, at times tragic) status, and what makes it a true—even if complex—symbol and aleph of Montevidean culture.
c. La rambla as a provider of spatial structure, continuity and escape.
The South is Our North 32
While la rambla provides a sense of historical direction and progress (an orientation and resolution in the dimension of Time), likewise, it also functions as an effective mental spatial organizer, which shapes and anchors a system of meanings of the city, of the location of social life, of the self, and of how to go about in life. In order to grasp this other ideological work performed—and enabled—by la rambla, though, first, one needs to understand the principal spatial tensions and conflicts that structure an experience of the city, first, along the South-North axis, and second, along the West-East one.
To begin with, la rambla stands and represents our absolute South (something like the very opposite of Borges’ South, which begins at Rivadavia Ave.). This means many things, starting with the fact that la rambla is located in the city’s shore facing the South Pole, and thereby literally constitutes Montevideo’s (as well as Uruguay’s) most southern limit and border. Yet, none of this would necessarily be significant per se if it were not for other cultural and historical meanings associated with these geographical “facts”. For example, because of its beauty, as well as because of ideas and trends (primarily French and English) concerning beauty, health and good life circulating in the late 19th and early 20Th centuries the upper classes at that time wanted either to live or to spend time far away from the city, either in the countryside or by the beach. This resulted in the construction of a series of upper class suburban resorts, either at the beach (Capurro, Pocitos, Carrasco) or close enough to it (El Prado). As Montevideo grew larger it engulfed those resorts, which then became neighborhoods. Commercial and industrial activity, pollution, the arrival of incoming non-upper class neighbors, eventually caused the decay, collapse and abandonment of some of these enclaves of the local oligarchy. Eventually only la rambla East of the Urban Park (today’s Rodó Park) was adopted as an upper class residential, vacationing and recreational area. As such, la rambla became a valuable and expensive location (one that worked as class filter, created distinction, and conferred status), a marker of class (indicating the location of wealth, power, success, good life) and, in sum, an indicator of the direction of social mobility.
That these upper class residential areas were located at the shore and that only the ones in the East have survived, in turn, says something about our perception and value of the shore, of our concern for the beauty and quality of it, and of our experiences there. Part of its success and appeal came from long running ideas and trends concerning the meaning and value of the sea and shore, part from the natural attributes of these places and our human veneration of the shoreline, and part from a social dynamics, as the upper-classes sought each other and tried to distance themselves from the working classes, and were followed by the middle classes. But part is surely related to our own history as a nation as well. For instance, by virtue of being on the shoreline—regardless of orientation—la rambla is thought to be the site closest to Europe and the Civilized World. This perception, in turn, expresses a notion that Civilization came from the Sea, brought by colonizers, immigrants and cosmopolitan travelers, who came by way of ships. Thus, the shore where la rambla is located usurps the historical role of the Port, the Bay, the Old City, and Downtown to be perceived as itself both the source and point of entry of Civilization, a place where one encounters and attempts an entry into the benefits of Civilization, and an index that signals the direction from which Civilization arrived.
Its proximity to the natural elements, on the other hand—the sand, the ocean waves, the winds and the clouds, the sky, the heavenly bodies—gives to la rambla an aura of natural paradise, of a primeval place devoid of needs and full of earthly delights: a divine creation, even a sign of God. This connotation is further reinforced by a notion of its opposite. Indeed, the North is a place far away from la rambla, the location of the lower and the poorer working class neighborhoods (La Aguada, La Teja, El Cerro), behind which lies the even poorer peripheral barrios marginales, and beyond which lies in turn “the frontier”—la campaña, el desierto—the hinterlands, the land where the hordes of barbarians (remember Sarmiento?) come from—a place outside and far away from Civilization. This chain of associations connects as well with a view of the countryside as a land of rural workers, caudillos, gauchos, and natives, in other words, a land of archaic traditions and aberrant cultures. In sum, the North is a place of work, of failure, abandonment and misery, beyond the sight and reach of God, perhaps Hell itself. Small wonder, according to this view, that the Department of Artigas, located in the most northern corner of Uruguay, is not only the hottest and farthest from the shore and the capital, but also the poorest and most underdeveloped—thereby confirming this geopolitical mindset.
As for the West-East axis, la rambla is associated with the East, partially because it was Montevideo’s Old East and partially because it points in the direction of the East, the site of the even more affluent neighborhoods—the former urban resorts of Malvín, and Carrasco—of the new middle-class suburbs along the shore, and the nicer Oceanic resorts of the East, including Piriápolis (whose hills can be seen from Montevideo), Punta del Este, and the shores of Rocha, where the sun rises. Thus, the East somehow is connected to the South (a place of leisure, wealth, success) in the same way that the West is linked to the North: a place of industry, of work, of port activity and polluted waters, of poorer and not so beautiful sights, and where the River Plate gets muddier and muddier as it receives the rivers that originate in the center of the continent.
The West is also the direction of the Past because there we find the Old Colonial City, 18 de Julio Avenue and its series of emblematic plazas, diagonal perspectives, public buildings (the Parliament, the Presidential Residence, the City Hall, etc.), cafes, arcades, movie theaters and monuments. The latter was the symbolic heart of the Montevideo of the 20th Century, with all it represented, and still represents: a more integrated and homogenously middle-class Montevideo, where politics and the State occupied the centerpiece, etc.
More recently, however, in opposition to this traditional paradigm of an integrated city anchored in the old Downtown, a series of newly built shopping malls (modeled after the ones in the U.S., with vast parking areas and all) have reoriented and shifted the structure of the city, connoting an entirely new way of conceptualizing and living the urban experience. These malls, in turn, are articulated physically and symbolically to the highways that connect to the affluent neighborhoods and the new suburbs of the East. This East-looking way of living in the city, organized around the shopping malls, half-projects and half-creates a post-urban, post-political, radically fractured city, in which the Market has displaced the State, consumption has displaced citizenship, and where the affluent buy and the poor try to follow (although not always with success). As a result, Montevideo is now the site of a struggle between two urban models, each organized around a different axis and core and its corresponding social, cultural, political, and aesthetic implications.
Within this urban and semiotic drama, la rambla plays a dual and contradictory role, which is what keeps it central. One the one hand, it is an integral part of the old urban fabric and the old ways of living and being in the city: a city organized around walking and the sidewalk, collective transportation, small shops, short distances, and in sum, a streetscape with particular proportions, formal qualities, and rhythms allowing for proximity and familiarity, and favoring social interaction. In this sense la rambla is still Montevideo’s traditional balcony, its long established place of gathering, leisure and walk; it still represents and symbolizes that Montevideo, thus reaffirming this cultural model. Much of this, indeed, needs to be credited to the Broad Front’s City Government, whose urban policies and interventions were aimed at, precisely, refurnishing and revamping the Old City, Downtown, and other traditional urban nodes—including la rambla—as a means of counter-acting and resisting the pull and spell of the shopping malls, and a further reorientation and dismemberment of Montevideo, in reality as well as in our minds. And to a great extent this urban strategy has worked: it is keeping the shopping mall-centered city at bay, it has avoided the collapse of the Old City and the Old Downtown, and has managed to maintain the city’s integrity and unity.
Yet, la rambla is also part of that new city orbiting the shopping malls, the tourist circuit, the developer’s dreamland, the new affluent neighborhoods, and the arteries that take us to the East; it has become itself one such preferred avenue. All combined, then, la rambla provides a kind of fantastic resolution: it becomes a place where one can be an inhabitant of two very different Montevideos, the ultimate “buffer zone” (as Uruguay itself was created to play the role of a buffer nation-state). As a convenient border area or gateway, la rambla allows you to move back and forth between these two Montevideos (to enter and leave Modernity and Postmodernity, in García Canclini’s terms, depending on mood), between the security and protection of the city-as-forest and the adventures and dreams that lay beyond the horizon. Or, if you like, la rambla may become a versatile place that, if only momentarily, allows you to be beyond good and evil, and situate yourself before and beyond History and Culture (the Origin of Time, The Womb, Death, Nothingness), whatever fits the occasion. A such it becomes an ideal location to negotiate your place and the meaning of the city and of the times, and somehow accommodate and reorganize your self accordingly without having to give up too much.
While la rambla stands as a vernacular Nirvana or Shangri-La, and hence, a place of pilgrimage and confluence, it is also a scenario of obscene contrasts and clashes, of unexpected and undesired encounters and surprises. Indeed, since everybody—each with its own motives, fears, and desires in mind—comes to la rambla, no other place in Montevideo is capable of encapsulating and expressing today’s disparities, inequalities, fractures, and conflicts. Here you see the most luxurious penthouses, restaurants and boutiques, campaigning politicians, and the most sublime bodies skating or biking, side by side with sunbathing old folks, ridiculous nouveau riche, joyful youngsters, malnourished mendicant street children, Iemanjá followers, or an entire working class family enjoying a perfect Saturday evening by the sea, all feeling and exhibiting a very unique sense of pride and entitlement to the place, and by connotation, to the entire city.
d. Behind the Screens / Beware of la rambla.
de su ventana se ve la playa
pero se ignoran los cantegriles33
It is very tempting to endorse—and repeat—many if not all of the contradictory yet reassuring and comforting discourses, fantasies and illusions enabled by the image as well as by the experience of la rambla: la rambla as an enduring symbol of social inclusiveness and hyper-integration; la rambla as a provider of concrete goods, pleasures and services; la rambla as image and tangible proof of what we were, are, or could be; la rambla as the goal of apparently unlimited social intercourse and social mobility, as a site to inhabit and to go back and forth between the old and the new, or as an escape or return to various imaginary points of origin and absolute fulfillment. The final point I would like to make here, however, is that in addition to everything said here in this attempt to explain la rambla’s social value, appeal, and symbolic power, la rambla as image and as a representation also functions as a powerful stratagem to hide, minimize, forget and even escape the severe problems Montevidean society faces today, and a way of “marketing an illusion”34.
True, just as in a Shakespearean drama, no matter how hard we try to escape problems, politics, specters, and ghosts (los muertos de mi felicidad), they haunt and torment us wherever we go. And the more la rambla serves—or is intended to serve—as a shield, screen, or smoke screen so to render the other side invisible or non-existing, the more la rambla betrays us. Yet, the contrasts and the social miseries that one cannot avoid seeing at la rambla—the street children juggling or washing windshields at intersections for a few coins, the small army of petty-thieves, the prostitutes who stand in pairs in almost every bus stop along the shore, the hundreds of garbage “classifiers” (entire families), pulling their carts and horses, that are now part of our social landscape—are unable to reveal in all its magnitude and tragedy the true face and dimension of the Uruguayan economic and social crisis.
If la rambla’s Modern architecture manages to erase or to produce a peculiar sense of the Past, its shape, image and mythological status also contribute to erase much of the Present as well. When one is at la rambla or looks at it, it is difficult to keep in one’s mind or imagine the reality of Montevideo as a whole, of the real Montevideo. The tourist, certainly, will be easily tricked and misled. But even the Montevideans ourselves have serious trouble escaping the spell and delusions la rambla imposes upon us. First, it is very difficult to make sense of such disparities and social gaps. La rambla offers ample testimony of Past and Present wealth, of beauty, sensibility, civility, conviviality, and common sense as well. Hence, Montevideo’s poverty and disparities are rendered unbelievable, illogical and unconvincing (lacking verisimilitude).35
Now, many of today’s problems were already present and part of Montevideo as a society and as a city, for our dependent development was always generating disparities and exclusions, leaving important segments of the population out of its benefits. So, while the crisis of 2002 rendered some structural problems and social conflicts more visible, its sheer speed and magnitude makes them, again, relatively invisible and hard to imagine, believe and process. La rambla’s own very spatial and formal features add much to our difficulties because la rambla does work as a façade and blocking screen which gives—and fixes—a powerful (yet untrue) image to the city, one that, therefore, impedes us from seeing what is behind the image, behind the screen, or at a distance. This is further aggravated by the fact that while historically Montevideo used to be a fairly permeable city, lacking strong barriers and impediments to go from one point to another, this is less so today, when Montevideo is increasingly segmented and segregated along class and socio-cultural lines, and in many respects distant (lejana), unknown or unrecognizable to its own inhabitants. Indeed, communications (the mass media, telephones, computers) and transportation systems (pathways, highways, cars) have aggravated this lack of actual, first-hand, personal sensory experiences, and thus, of true knowledge of the city, as they give way to a highly mediated, fragmentary and disembodied relationship with the city, and contribute to reinforce the idea and the reality of a urban system made of parallel, seldomly intersecting networks and subcultures, each apart from, fearful of, or indifferent to one another.36
If in the Past la rambla as façade somehow reflected the city and its culture, today city and façade have ceased to correspond to each other. Moreover, the city has become strange, sinister and hence unhomely37, for increasingly our particular and concrete experiences of the city do not correspond to our concepts and expectations, what makes the city a familiar place, a place where we feel at home and cultivate a sense of ownership, and of ourselves. New “illegible” and disturbing characters, social subjectivities and urban tribes have re-populated the cityscape, and we do not know how to relate to them. Many time-tested social and cultural assumptions, scripts, routines and rituals are disrupted or rendered obsolete by the logic of the market and the law of the survival of the strongest (la ley de la selva), and the public effects of unemployment, exclusion and poverty. Squatters cease to be “only a few ones somewhere far way”, and become more and more the fabric of the new city. They can pop up surprisingly as we turn the corner, or walk down the street. And this is the point when it is always very tempting and very efficient to take a walk by la rambla—or merely think about her—and let it do its aesthetic, spiritual and ideological “work”. So, even if one recognizes the value and importance of la rambla and needs to be ready to defend it as a social right, a valuable social and cultural asset, a tool for change, and an inspiring symbol, one also needs to be alert as well, in order not to fall victim to its spell, which can also be a cause of memory loss, of loosing touch with reality, of conformism, nostalgia, and lack of vision and social sensibility.
4. A magic yet fragile moment: From resistance to hegemony.
Había una vez, un país al revés
y todo era diferente.
Todo el valor, el oro y el sol
pertenecían a la gente.38
The invitation to the conference “Negotiating the Streets in the Hispanic and Lusophone City” rightly encouraged participants “to focus on emergent or changing social groups and their spatial practices” and “on new perspectives on the city”, privileging the period between the late 20Th C. and the present. Moreover, it urged us to “focus on new ways of occupying and perceiving the city” [and in ways that] “challenge the existing organization and representations of urban space”39. The task for me, then, has been how to meet the parameters and expectations of our hosts while at the same time telling the story of a process of negotiation of the street and of a transformation of the existing organization and representation of the city currently taking place in Montevideo, which is both ongoing and unresolved, especially as in the present moment powerful contending forces and cultural projects seem to have reached a stalemate.
In doing so, I am aware that I have run more than a few risks (which make my case vulnerable to many fair critiques), but it is my contention that any less would be short-changing the reader, and doing an injustice to this magic yet fragile moment in which we Uruguayans find ourselves today; a moment, that is, when, momentarily, resisting can mean commanding a counter-hegemony (the City-State, and the very National State), and when changing means challenging certain forms, conceptions and uses of space as much as securing and insisting upon some urban ideas and principles thought to be instrumental and key, in the short-term, for overcoming a most severe social, economic and cultural crisis, and in the medium-term, for making deeper advances towards a progressive reorganization of Montevidean social life and culture.
June 2004.
NOTAS
1 Ruben Lena, Pobre Joaquín.
2 Henry Lefebvre, The Production of Space. London: Basil Blackwell, 1991.
3 David Harvey, Consciousness and the Urban Experience. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1985.
4 Anthony Orum and Xiangming Chen, The World of Cities. Oxford: Backwell, 2003.
5 Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press, 1984.
6 Winifred Gallagher, The Power of Place. How Our Surroundings Shape Our Toughts, Emotions, and Actions. New York: Harper Perennial, 1994.
7 Edward T. Hall, The Hidden Dimension, Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1969 and The Silent Language, Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, 1959.
8 Fredric Jameson, “Architecture and the Critique of Ideology” in Architecture, Criticism, Ideology, Joan Ockman, ed. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton Architectural Press, 1985.
9 Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1982.
10 Aldo Rossi, An Analogical Architecture (1976), translated by David Steward, and taken from Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture, Kate Nesbitt, ed.: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996.
11 Cited by Aldo Rossi in op. cit.
12 Following the Uruguayan economists Daniel Olesker, Alberto Couriel, Danilo Astori, Walter Cancela and others, this model of development is based upon free and open markets, the export of primary commodities, the import of consumer goods, short term financial speculation, heavy borrowing and indebtment, all in all resulting in the concentration of wealth and capital, and in social exclusion and disintegration.
13 Álvaro Pérez García, “Historias de inmigrantes: Volver sin la frente marchita”, Brecha, 12 de marzo de 2004. “Son tantas las razones de por qué nos vamos y, parece mentira, a veces las mismas de por qué volvemos. Los lugares comunes abundan, es difícil escapar de ellos: uno mira la rambla y dice que no la va a extrañar, que hace al romanticismo nostálgico de esto de ser montevideano, como las calles oscuras por la noche, con ese amarillo tenue, y sin embargo, sucede”
14 Carolina Aguerre and Mariana Blengio, “La rambla: El marco de Montevideo” / “La rambla, la esencia de Montevideo”. Revista de PLUNA, Dic. 2002, p. 15 “Si se trata de encontrarse con el pasado, el presente o el futuro de la ciudad, la rambla es el lugar ideal para ello, y también para apreciar la variedad de la arquitectura, el encanto del paisaje y la naturaleza, pero por sobre todo para conocer las características únicas de los montevideanos y de su manera de vivir.” (p. 13)
15 Jorge Francisco Liernur, “Privacidad, publicidad e incertidumbre”, Las dimensiones del espacio público, Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Subsecretaría de Planeamiento, 2003, p. 29. “Siempre que pienso en el espacio público imagino parques, plazas y grandes avenidas. Creo que es un punto de partida compartido. Para la cultura moderna, el sitio por excelencia de ese espacio público imaginado, sin pensar demasiado, el más celebrado y magnífico, es París. Los quais con sus negocios, los bulevares con sus cafés llenos de gente, el Luxembourg con sus sillas. Otros lugares se arriman sin que se los llame: Las ramblas de Montevideo, el mercado bullicioso en cualquier barrio de ciudad de México, la gente patinando en la plaza del Rockefeller Center”
16 Yi-Fu Tuan, Space and Place. The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977.
17 Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 1960.
18 Matthew Cooper, “Access to the Waterfront: Transformation of Meaning on the Toronto Lakeshore” and Timothy Sieber, “Public Access on the Urban Waterfront: A Question of Vision”, in The Cultural Meaning of Urban Space, Rotenberg and McDonogh, eds., Westport, Conn.: Bergin and Garvey, 1993.
19 Christian Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture. New York: Rizzoli, 1980, and Architecture: Meaning and Place. New York: Rizzoli, 1988.
20 Donald Pitkin, “Italian Urbanscape: Intersection of Public and Private”, in The Cultural Meaning of Urban Space, Robert Rotenberg and Gary McDongh, eds. Westport, Conn.: Bergin and Garvey, 1993.
21 Yi-Fu Tuan, Topophilia. A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Values. New York: Columbia University Press, 1974.
22 Carlos Real de Azúa.
23 Mariano Arana and Fernando Giordano, “Montevideo: Bewteen Participation and Authoritarianism”, and John Friedman, “The Right to the City” in Rethinking the Latin American City, Richard Morse and Jorge Hardoy, eds. Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.
24 Jorge L. Borges, “Tema del Traidor y el Héroe”, Ficciones.
25 Carlos Altezor and Hugo Barrachini, Historia urbanística y edilicia de la ciudad de Montevideo. Montevideo: Junta Departamental de Montevideo, 1971; Ricardo Álvarez Lenzi, Mariano Arana and Livia Bocchiardo. El Montevideo de la expansión: 1868-1915, Montevideo: Ediciones de la Banda Oriental, 1986.
26 James Holston, “The Death of the Street” in the chapter “The City Defamiliarized” in The Modernist City. An Anthropological Critique of Brasilia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.
27 Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1982.
28 Manfred Max-Neef, “The City: Its Size and Rythm”, in Rethinking the Latin American City, Richard Morse and Jorge Hardoy, eds. Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.
29 Grupo de Estudios Urbanos, Una ciudad sin memoria. Montevideo: Ediciones de la Banda Oriental, 1983.
30 Filgueira and Katzman.
31 MarcAugé, Non-Places. Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. New York: Verso, 1995.
32 Joaquín Torres García.
33 Mario Benedetti, ¿De qué se ríe?
34 Ada Louise Huxtable, The Unreal America. Architecture and Illusion. New York; The New Press, 1997.
35 Anglo-Americans attempt to solve this same problem by keeping the various quarters of the city as apart as possible, and by declaring the poor neighborhoods separate or independently incorporated city-states, with their own racial and cultural composition and identity and all, and if possible, with no links whatsoever to the affluent neighborhoods, not that much different from the urban model of the apartheid.
36 Stephen Graham, “Imagining the Real-Time City: Telecommunications, Urban Paradigms and the Future of Cities”, in Imagining Cities: Scripts, Signs, Memory, Sallie Westwood and John Williams, eds. New York: Routledge, 1997; Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin, eds. Telecommunications and the City. Electronic Spaces, Urban Spaces. New York: Routledge, 1996; Nan Ellin, ed., Architecture of Fear. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997.
37 Anthony Vilder, The Architectural Uncanny: Essays in the Modern Unhomely. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1992.
38 Sui Géneris. “Música de fondo para cualquier fiesta animada”.
39 Communication with Lorraine Leu, University of Bristol, UK.
Other related works by G. A. Remedi:
2004 “La ciudad latinoamericana S. A. (o el asalto al espacio público) [2000]”, in Las dimensiones del espacio público. Problemas y proyectos. Buenos Aires, Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires - Subsecretaría de Planeamiento, 2004 (15-25). Originally published in Escenario 2 Montevideo, Vol. 1 Nº 1 (55-58).
2003 “Representaciones de la ciudad: Apuntes para una crítica cultural” [1996], in Tram(p)as de la Comunicación y la Cultura (Universidad de la Plata, Argentina) Año 2 Nº 18, Oct. 2003 (38-52). Originally published in the Selected Proceedings of the 17th Lousiana Conference on Hispanic Languages and Literatures, Lousiana State University-Baton Rouge, 1996 (237-254).
2003 “Montevideo en sus pliegues” [2001], in Reconfiguraciones materiales y simbólicas de la cultura en el Cono Sur postdictatorial, (Monographic Issue), Laura Martins, ed. Revista Iberoamericana Vol.. LXIX Nº 202 Ene-Mar 2003 (65-85).
1998 “Dystopian Scenes: Social Subjectivities and Horror in Peripheral Modernity”, in Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies (London, U.K.), Vol. 7, Nº 2, 1998 (225-243).
1997 “Ciudad letrada: Angel Rama y la espacialización del análisis cultural”, in Angel Rama. Estudios críticos, Mabel Moraña, Ed. Pittsburgh: Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana (IILI) / Series «Biblioteca de América» (97-122).
1997 “Los lenguajes de la conciencia histórica: A propósito de Una ciudad sin memoria” [1995], in Memoria colectiva y políticas de olvido: Argentina y Uruguay, 1970-1990, Adriana Bergero and Fernando Reati, Eds. Buenos Aires: Beatriz Viterbo, 1997 (345-369).
Forth. “La escena ubicua: Hacia un nuevo modelo del sistema teatral nacional” (2003), in Latin American Theater Review Spring 2005 Vol. 38 Nº 2 (University of Kansas, Lawrence).
Forth. “Los demonios de Ariel: El imaginario popular a principios del siglo XX” (2001), in El Imaginario cultural en el Uruguay (Vol. 2), Hugo Achugar and Mabel Moraña, eds. (Montevideo, Editorial Trilce).
Forth. “The Production of Local Public Spheres: Community Radio Stations” (1997),in Latin American Cultural Studies. A Reader. Ana Del Sarto, Alicia Ríos and Abril Trigo, Eds. (Duke University Press).