MATERIALITY AND MEMORY IN THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF AN FORMER CLANDESTINE DETENTION CENTER AS A SPACE OF REMEMBRANCE

Abstract

The work with architectures linked to acts of violence, death and disappearance has a complexity on its own. In the case of former clandestine detention centers in our country, this complexity led to many debates and discussions about how to carry out the institutionalization of “Espacios para la Memoria”, remembrance spaces in these places by developing interventions that respect the material characteristics of the architectures while allowing the memory construction.

With the objective of analyze the definitions constructed in relation to materiality and its link with the construction of remembrance in the case of the former clandestine detention center Virrey Cevallos in Buenos Aires, in this article we take into consideration the conservation and restoration tasks carried out, the emerging tensions and the spatial sectorizations that are configured. How do you work with the materiality of the former clandestine detention center? Which are the strategies assumed since the intervention in its materiality? Or in any case, what aspects are considered to define an intervention as such? These are some of the questions that the article intends to answer based on the analysis of interviews carried out with workers of this memorial site.