By Pablo Luis Gasipi *
The instructive and heartfelt lines of Guillermo Vega Fischer on the buildings and monuments of the International Exhibition of 1910 in Buenos Aires, leave a question: are there laws for the protection of cultural heritage in the Argentine Republic?
The answer is yes; The preservation and protection of the objects that make up the group known as "material cultural heritage" is provided for in the National Constitution, in the Human Rights Agreements incorporated therein, in the multinational Agreements to which the Argentine Republic is a party and, therefore, last, in internal laws. The Argentine law, as a manifestation of the will of the people, has been dedicated to the protection of these special elements -in which cultural and historical importance, artistic and ethnographic details, institutional value and price-; It does so consecutively from 1869 -law 323, referring to the House where Independence was sworn in, in San Miguel de Tucumán- until the present. Within this set of almost thirty national laws, Law 12,665 is fundamental due to its history and its governing provisions in terms of the defense of monuments, sites and historical, artistic or industrial assets (art. 4). It was promulgated in 1940 and adapted in the years 1993 and 2015, and its norms regulate how certain buildings, monuments or goods that meet the conditions established in the law are included in the lists of things protected preferably by the State.
As this is the first comprehensive law of and for the protection of buildings and monuments of architectural, artistic or historical value (the previous ones referred to the care of certain objects in a particular way) and as the "fateful demolitions" occurred before its validity, It is true that we must assume that these were not contrary to the law of those years. Nor to the prevailing social idea at the time about building or monumental protection, very different from the one that is proclaimed today and whose effects we enjoy.
So, the anger can (and should) be expressed due to the lack of vision of those people or because their actions privileged a utilitarian or economic criterion of space before a conservationist one of works of special value... But the truth is that there was not, at less about what is known and, in general, non-compliance or confrontation with the internal law in force at the time of the aforementioned disappearances.
In this sense, the recent ruling of the Supreme Court of Justice -well reviewed by the author- highlights the importance of Law 12,665 and the validity of its provisions. Now whoever tries to tear down or modify a building of these characteristics will have a stumbling block in the law and a severe confrontation with society, which values it.
* Special for Hilario.