Category Archives: Argentina

Casa HO

It is impressive to discover a building in which bike needs have been idealized and implemented thanks for twenty first-century-mind architects. One example is located in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In concrete, the HO house (from the Donato – Holmberg area) was built in 2018 on the military Osvaldo Cacciatore’s idea of a highway that fortunately was not finally materialized. However, the end of the dictatorship finished with his dream, though almost one thousand houses were expropriated.

The 12,000 squared meters building counts on a commercial space in the ground floor and apartments in upper floors. What is really interesting is the ramp which quarters the central courtyard from the ground floor to the fifth floor. Thus, a person can ride his bicycle to the top without stop pedaling. Moreover, there are bike parking in every floor for 40 bikes in total.

So close is the relation of this building with bicycles that the building owner gave a beautiful bike by Monochrome Bikes to those who bought an apartment.

Fernando Traverso

In March 24th, 2001 actual size, black bicycles started appearing in Rosario, Argentina. At the beginning, it was a surprise since nobody knew who had painted them or whether they had a special meaning. Then, one day it was discovered that Fernando Traverso had made them. Fernando Traverso is a plastic artist who militated in the Juventud Peronista in his youth at the same time the bloody dictatorship of Jorge Rafael Videla took place. Among the abundant crimes it committed such as economic and juridical issues, there was the multiple human rights violations.

Fernando Traverso painted 350 black bicycles and this figure links with one of the darker episodes in the Rosario history. 350 is precisely the number of disappeared people from Rosario under the dictatorship. The Argentinian repression is known first for kidnapping people, then for torturing and finally for disappearing thousands of Argentinian.

There is a red number bellow every black bicycle indicating the number of bike in the series. Not surprisingly, cycles play a central role in this Traverso work. The reason why is that is because an episode in his youth. One day in the grey streets of the dictatorship, he was walking when he came across a friend who was riding a bike. Traverso surprised since he did not say hello to him and after a few minutes he found his friend’s bicycle locked to a tree. The next day, the same bike remained in the very same spot. This detail impressed Fernando Traverso and after some time he determined his friend had been a victim of the dictatorship. He had been murdered.

The project was awarded by the Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes Juan B. Castagnino in december of 2003.