Golondrinas: passages of influence: the construction of national/cultural identities in Italy and the Río de la Plata Basin of South America

Abstract

In the 1800s, migrant farmers from the Italian peninsula, nicknamed golondrinas or birds of passage by Argentines, worked the alternating harvests of the northern and southern hemispheres, at home and in Argentina, respectively. Their modus operandi of mobility became a shared experience of Italian freedom fighters, intellectuals and professionals who migrated to the greater context of the Río de la Plata Basin (including Uruguay and southern Brazil). This article reveals how the values, ideas, and aspirations of said Italian intellectual and professional golondrinas infiltrated the debates of constructing national identities in architecture in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Italy.

Keywords:

• national identity
• migration
• architecture

Notes

1. Although the concept of italianità already existed, its frequent use is linked to the first half of the 1930s.

2. Montevideo and São Paulo did as well.

3. Garibaldi's “golondrinas” fought against hegemonic rule first in the Río de la Plata Basin, then returned to Italy to fight for its unification. Many artistic “golondrinas,” such as internationally recognised Lucio Fontana also moved back and forth.

4. Originally taken from: Marcello Piacentini, Nuovi orizzonti dell'edilizia cittàdina. Prosusione inaugurale del 2 anno accademicl della R. Scuola Superiore di Architettura in Roma, 10 novembre 1921; transcript of Edilizia Cittàdina classes. Archives of the Florence College of Architecture.

5. Although this essay does not include fine artists in great depth, they were an integral part of the cross-Atlantic dialogue involving the intersection of politics and the search for a national culture identity between Italy and the Río de la Plata Basin. Emilio Pettoruti, as painter/golondrina, was heavily recruited by Marinetti to join his futurist movement on his initial stay in Italy between 1913 and 1924, but he did not wish to be limited to one “movement” and he felt uncomfortable with Marinetti's ties to fascism. He did associate with Margherita Sarfatti and commissioned Alberto Sartoris to design his home in La Plata in 1938.

6. There were also other exhibits not mentioned here. “Mostra di Arte Scenica” organised by A.C. Bragaglia in 1935 and “Arte Decorativa” in 1937.

7. See Zilah Quezado Deccker (2001, p. 17). Costa believed that the new architecture was international, but he stressed its Latin roots – Mediterranean traditions dating from the Greeks and Romans and reborn in the Renaissance – were more acceptable in Brazil. Another argument in defence of romanità.

8. Excerpts originally taken from newspaper La Razón (Argentina), May 24, 1937.

9. Originally taken from Gutiérrez, (1983, p. 575).

10. After anti-Semitic laws were passed by the fascist regime in 1938, many Italian Jewish intellectuals such as Calabi and the once highly influential Margherita Sarfatti fled the country. The former went to São Paulo, whilst the latter escaped to Buenos Aires and Montevideo. After the war, in golondrina fashion, they returned to Italy.

11. The two architects of Jewish faith became close associates socially and professionally.

12. For additional references, see pages 137 and 142.