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“Honey are you ready for tango?” said the voice on the other end
of the phone. It was Christophe Lorvo calling his wife Alicia one
morning last fall. The young general manager of the Hyatt Regency
Madeleine in Paris had just gotten the word: he would be moving on to
head the company’s new Park Hyatt in Buenos Aires.
By December, the couple and their two young daughters
were settled into their new home, and construction of the 165-room,
five-star hotel had begun. Set in the heart of Recoleta, a lovely gardened neighborhood of modern
apartment houses, French/Italian-style palazzos, café-lined
boulevards, and elegant shops, the property is running through the
depth of a city block, linking a magnificent 1930’s neo-classical
palazzo on Avenue Alvear to a 15-story tower rising on Posadas Street
to its rear. Formal gardens surrounding an elaborate fountain and an
underground gallery featuring works of Argentine artists are going to
connect the dramatically different structures.
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In
consultation with historians from the University of Architecture where
the original plans and blueprints of the palazzo are stored,
restoration and refurbishing of the splendid high-ceilinged landmark,
which is to be the main entrance of the hotel, are underway. The
reception area will blend Italian marble floors with Baccarat
lighting fixtures. Original fireplaces and wooden doors, pillars with
carved capitals and 300-year-old oak wall panels from Normandy are
being meticulously restored by local craftsmen. A 3,000-bottle wine
cellar specializing in Argentine wines will double as wine-tasting
room. There will be a cheese room devoted mainly to artisan-type
Argentine cheeses, three exclusive restaurants overseen by a chef Lorvo is bringing from Paris, a below-ground spa, and a dining terrace
overlooking the gardens. By early December 2005 when the summer season
in the bottom half of the world begins, Palacio Duhau--Park Hyatt
(named for the family who originally owned the palazzo) should be
welcoming its first guests.
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Christophe Lorvo in hard hat before
the palazzo that will
be the main entrance to the Palacio Duhau--Park Hyatt
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The scope and
ambition of this undertaking underscores international confidence in
Buenos Aires’ luxury tourist market, a confidence amply manifest in
Puerto Madero, a wide peninsula separated from the mainland by a
narrow canal divided into four basins. Once a grimy industrial
waterfront, it has of late taken on dimensions of new chic in a manner
reminiscent of New York’s South Street Seaport twenty years ago or
Tribeca nowadays. A huge seaside landfill area having been left to
its own devices has morphed over the years into an ecological
preserve, but rows of square brick warehouses along the region’s
cobblestone streets have been turned with deliberate intent into
expensive apartment houses, high-end restaurants and hotels.
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The Faena
Hotel+Universe is one vivid case of Puerto Madero’s Industrial Age
construction having been merged with 21st century design. A
soaring, elongated entrée between walls of exposed brick and
highlighted in burnished shades of browns, russets and golds leads to
a darkly dramatic interior of mahogany floors and leather upholstery,
fragile crystal chandeliers and solid brass lighting fixtures, and
color schemes that typically combine scarlet and white. It is a
Philippe Starck vision that suggests at once turn-of-the last-century
South American cabaret and gleaming futurism.
A less
dramatic but pleasing renaissance has settled on Palermo, the
residential barrio northwest of Recoleta which borders on the lovely
Botanical Gardens, home to Baroque statues and families of friendly,
well-fed cats. There is a West (Greenwich) Village feel to Palermo’s
shaded streets lined with small walk-ups and sidewalk cafés as well as
a suggestion of New York’s SoHo in its pre-pricey and too-touristy
days. Like SoHo, Palermo was a neighborhood of light industry before
its transformation into a graceful community of interesting new
restaurants, art galleries and singular boutiques, most of them
showcasing the work of young and creative Argentine designers. At the
current exchange rate of three pesos to one American dollar, shopping
in Palermo becomes an irresistible compulsion.
All visible
signs in this dynamic metropolis, home to a third of the nation’s
population, point to a nation on the rise. Despite Argentina’s refusal
to follow conventional advice and cut deals with foreign creditors in
the wake of the economic crisis in late 2001 that led to the worse
depression in its history, the economy is recovering. Claims of
bondholders, banks and the IMF were put on hold while internal
consumption was stimulated. The result: more than two million new jobs
and an 8% growth over the past two years.
Concurrently
the mood in Buenos Aires is upbeat. Shops are crowded; so are the many
excellent restaurants featuring famed Argentine beef; city services
are apparently functioning smoothly; cruise ships linger in the port
long enough for passengers to fill the many hotel rooms; and companies
like IBM are holding international conferences in huge downtown
hotels.
Again one
hears Buenos Aires referred to as “Paris of the South,” and how apt
the metaphor seems on a stroll through Recoleta past the sand-colored
stone palazzos and high-end boutiques or across the swaths of plazas
and public gardens. Perhaps even moreso seated at an outdoor café
along a broad boulevard among elegantly-dressed Porteńos –
surprisingly of Italian as much as Spanish origin – who linger over
coffee through the afternoon as the world passes by.
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The stately museums of Recoleta and nearby Palermo bring New York as much as Paris
to mind. Like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Buenos Aires’ Museo
Nacional de Bellas Artes is a beautiful classical building facing a
fashionable boulevard and embraced by greenery. The most important
fine arts museum in Argentina, its substantial collection includes
masterworks of national and European origin from the 19th
and 20th centuries. Malba, the glass-walled showcase for
contemporary Latin American art is, as the Guggenheim is to the Met,
further along the boulevard and, like the Guggenheim, a striking work
of art in itself. |
Despite the
comparisons, however, Buenos Aires is ultimately a place apart from
and unlike any other. Its distinctiveness goes beyond a location near
the bottom of the world where summer comes in December and winter in
July. For all the light and brightness, the upscale stores and
restaurants, the vast parklands and enormous boulevards, a melancholia
tempers the typical Latin joie de vivre, and it is this mood
which emerges from and defines Argentina’s most famous export: tango.
The haunting,
nostalgic melodies played on the bandoneón, a small concertina-type
instrument, backed by emphatic rhythms from bass, guitar, and piano,
can be heard wherever one goes. At crosswalks on Florida Street, the
long downtown pedestrian byway, sensuous pairs perform the complex
dips and intertwinings of the dance. They’re seen amidst the lively
street fairs of the waterfront Bohemian barrio La Boca with its
structures of corrugated zinc sheets painted in vivid primary shades
and on the streets of working class San Telmo famed for a Sunday flea
market where genuine antiques are mixed with the usual array. With the
ubiquitous coined-filled hat nearby, the dancers may be putting on
impromptu performances for tourists. At the same time, they convey a
sense of engaging in something real, something close to the heart.
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Across the
way from the huge shopping mall in Abasto, an old market neighborhood
that had been home to the legendary tango performer Carlos Garden, a
young man in white shirt, black pants, and requisite black fedora
dances with a woman wearing a slit skirt and high heel pumps. She is
maybe forty years older than he. They are sensational. A small crowd
gathers; the upturned hat on the ground is filled with change. Just
beyond on the site of the local restaurant Gardel frequented nearly a
century ago, the restaurant/theater Esquina Carlos Gardel features
tango performances by professional dancers.
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All are
unsmiling, dead serious, and it is this attitude combined with the
heart-tugging yearning of the music that reflects a sadness which
seems to lie beneath the surface of this brilliant and beautiful city.
The military dictatorship of 1976-1983 and the horrors of that time
are still very much part of living memory. Every Thursday, women in
headscarves continue to march around the central Plaza de Mayo in an
unrelenting campaign to learn what happened to their children who
“disappeared” during the so-called “Dirty War.”
Still, with a
democratic government in place and an economy in the process of
recovery, the future of this sophisticated and elegant South American
capital seems filled with possibilities, certainly a destination worth
encountering. “I will always have Paris,” says Christophe Lorvo whose
apartment is not far from where the Palaco Duhau Park Hyatt is coming
up. “But Alicia and I were ready for something different, and we have
found it here. Buenos Aires is such an artistic city. It has so much
to offer. For us it is a wonderful opportunity to come to this city
and be connected to this wonderful product. And,” he added, “there is
such a French connection. You walk the streets, and it seems like
Paris.”
Photos by Harvey Frommer
Argentina Government Tourist Office
12 West 56th Street
New York, NY 10019, USA
Phone:
212-603 0443
Fax: 212-586 1786.
Email:
secturny@turismo.gov.ar
Website:
www.turismo.gov.ar
photographs by Harvey Frommer |
