In Buenos Aires, the city's identity is erased by new construction

Reinforcing bars pile up on the ground floor, filled with dust. On the roof, the pool has yet to be built, but the promise of swimming laps at home, in the heart of Buenos Aires, is displayed in large print on the temporary facade of this nine-story building currently under construction. There will also be a gym, meeting room, laundry room, garage for cars and bicycles, barbecue grills, and a solarium. "Quiet, tree-lined streets," adds the builder in its brochure, extolling the practicality of Villa del Parque, a residential neighborhood in the west of the Argentine capital.

"What a horror! " comments Sandra Barbonetti, a neighbor opposite the building. "They're selling precisely what they're destroying: a quiet neighborhood of low-rise houses where people can meet outside, instead of shutting themselves in their building and doing everything on the premises."

She holds up the image of a bright blue single-story house, a former grocery store with an Italianate façade, a style inspired by Renaissance architecture, typical of the second half of the 19th ^century in Buenos Aires. "New buildings erase our history," sighs ^Barbonetti , a member of the group Conciencia Urbana Comuna 11 ("Common Urban Consciousness 11"), fighting to preserve the identity and heritage of Villa del Parque.

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