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Francisco Salamone
Topics: Argentine architects Sicilian-Argentines
Francisco Salamone (1897-1959) was an Argentine architect who between 1936 and 1940 built more than 60 municipal buildings with elements of Art Deco style in 25 rural communities on the Argentine Pampas within the Buenos Aires Province. These buildings were some of the first examples of modern architecture in rural Argentine.
Born on 5 June 1897 in Buenos Aires, Salamone was one of the four sons of an architect from Catania, Sicily. After leaving Otto Krause Industrial School in Buenos Aires he continued his studies in the National University of Cordoba where he graduated in 1917 with a degree in architecture and civil engineeing.
Salamone married the daughter of the British Consul in Bahia Blanca with whom he had four children. He became a good friend of Dr. Manuel A. Fresco, a conservative politician who was governor of the Province of Buenos Aires during the period 1936-1940. During Fresco's term of office a large number of new municipal buildings were built and the roads, irrigation and communications networks in the province were largelly improved. Although many of the new buildings were of little aesthetic value, those that Fresco commissioned Salamone were a notable and very personal combination of Art Deco, authoritarianism, functionalism, Italian Futorismo and propaganda on a vast scale. The use of reinforced concrete made it possible to construct buildings to a height that at that time made them symbols of municipal power and authority.
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Francisco Salamone
