Globetrotter
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This as much a museum as a HISTORICAL RECONSTRUCTION of a EXCAVATED OLD MANSION (turned conventillo) from old Buenos Aires.
*** It’s an illustration of the evolution of neighborhoods/communities: from large mansions of the rich, to their abandonment, to their re-habitation and conversion to communal dwellings of the poor.
From the colonization viewpoint, the mansion shows the startling strength of Bricks and Adobe in the construction of colonial dwellings!
From the social viewpoint, illustrates the wealth of Spanish colonial aristocrats…. AND implicitly, the poverty of those who later domiciled in the rooms on the mansion (called Conventillos) sharing kitchens and latrine, when owners abandoned their mansions to escape the local epidemic.
The story of the “tunnels (Zanjón)” is more fascinating. These tunnels were, in effect city drains and/or sewers. In an attempt to protect their property, people walled the streams and direct them to the estuary… rather ingenious!