Formed at the school of Camillo Boito and Gaetano Moretti, Mario Palanti brings to Argentina – his adopted homeland – a peculiar ability to find a synthesis between tradition and innovation, rethinking models and styles according to the opportunities of a new nation and the historical period in which he lives. He thus became one of the main figures in the development of the new metropolis of Buenos Aires, which still today bears in its urban fabric the imprint of his works and his visionary poetics. Evidence of this are Palazzo Barolo and Palazzo Salvo, two monumental buildings erected on the opposite sides of the estuary of Río La Plata to “glorify” the economic power and the entrepreneurial genius of the commissioning families. In these two skyscrapers – modern “pillars of Hercules” in the new world – Palanti’s innovative functional and structural solutions are combined with an aesthetic research that bears continuous reference to neo-gothic and Masonic symbols mixed with patterns derived from local flora and fauna. It is this continuous fusion between Italian tradition and the natural forms of Argentina that has given rise to unusual interpretations of Palanti’s architecture. For example Carlos Hilger defines Palazzo Barolo as “an illustrated model of the cosmos” where the remains of Dante Alighieri should have been moved to preserve it from the hazards of the Second World War. What lies beyond doubt, however, is that Palanti’s architecture, with its language and poetics, became the expression of the identity of a community, in this case Italian, which realizes in Argentina not only its own fortune but also that of the land that welcomed it. When asked “Is Architecture Science or Art?”, Palanti answers: “One thing and the other, together. Useful Art, the most useful of all, and Science at the same time. Science to satisfy the needs and ambitions of Humanity”.
Keywords: Mario Palanti, Argentina-Italy, Architecture.