Ink and paper were enough to immortalize the charm and spell of balconies, courtyards, and houses—both iconic and everyday structures. The giants of Argentine literature draw their pens to confront the concrete, reminding us once more of what moves and concerns us about architecture.
01. Seventy balconies and no flowers.
Author: Baldomero Fernandez Moreno (1886 − 1950).
“There are seventy balconies in this house,
seventy balconies and not a single flower.
What is wrong with its inhabitants, Lord?
Do they hate perfume, do they hate color?
The bare stone oppresses with sadness,
How sorrowful those black balconies are!
Is there no young bride in this house?
Is there no poet foolishly filled with illusions?
Does no one wish to see behind the glass
a tiny replica of a garden?
Rosebushes climbing up the white stone,
a jasmine blooming on the black ironwork?...”
02. The Obelisk.
Author: Baldomero Fernandez Moreno (1886 − 1950).
“Where did the city keep hidden
this gleaming silver sword
suddenly unsheathed
and aimed at the blue skies?
Now one's gaze,
tired of wandering low and penitent,
can cast itself up the stone toward the omnipotent Sun
and descend, spiritualized…”
03. Plaza San Martín.
Book: Fervor of Buenos Aires.
Author: Jorge Luis Borges (1889 - 1986).
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“All feeling grows quiet
under the absolution of the trees
—jacarandas, acacias—
whose merciful curves
soften the rigidity of the impossible statue
and in whose web is exalted
the glory of the lights equidistant
from the faint blue and the reddish earth.
How well the afternoon is seen
from the easy peace of the benches!
Below,
the port yearns for distant latitudes
and the deep square, leveler of souls,
opens like death, like sleep.”
04. La Recoleta.
Book: Fervor of Buenos Aires.
Author: Jorge Luis Borges (1889 - 1986).
“...Beautiful are the tombs,
the naked Latin and the linked fatal dates,
the conjunction of marble and flower
and the small squares with the freshness of a courtyard
and the many yesterdays of history
now halted and unique...”
05. A courtyard.
Book: Fervor of Buenos Aires.
Author: Jorge Luis Borges (1889 - 1986).
“With afternoon
the two or three colors of the courtyard grew tired.
Tonight, the moon, that clear circle,
does not dominate its space.
Courtyard, channeled sky.
The courtyard is the slope
down which the sky flows into the house.
Serene,
eternity waits at the crossroads of stars.
It is pleasant to live in the dark friendship
of an entrance hall, a grapevine, and a cistern.”
06. Street with Pink Store.
Book: Moon Across the Way.
Author: Jorge Luis Borges (1889 - 1986).
“...I wonder if your walls conceived the dawn,
corner store standing bright at the very edge of night...”
07. The streets.
Book: Fervor of Buenos Aires.
Author: Jorge Luis Borges (1889 - 1986).
“The streets of Buenos Aires
are already my very core.
Not the greedy streets,
uncomfortable with throngs and bustle,
but the listless streets of the neighborhood,
almost invisible from familiarity,
softened by twilight and sunset,
and those further out,
devoid of merciful trees,
where austere little houses barely venture,
overwhelmed by immortal distances,
to lose themselves in the deep vision
of sky and plain...”
08. Sidewalks of Buenos Aires.
Book: Save Twilight.
Author: Julio Cortázar (1914 - 1984).
“As kids we called it the sidewalk
and it liked being loved by us.
On its long-suffering back we drew
so many hopscotches...”
09. Milonga.
Book: Save Twilight.
Author: Julio Cortázar (1914 - 1984).
“...And I miss the corners with sleepy
general stores
where the scent of yerba mate trembles on the
skin of the air...”
10. Squares and angles.
Author: Alfonsina Storni (Argentina 1892-1932).
“Houses in a row,
houses in a row,
houses in a row.
Squares,
squares,
squares.
Houses in a row.
People already have square souls,
ideas in a row, and angles on their backs.
Yesterday I myself shed a tear,
My God, a square one.”
This article was written by Mariana Etulain. The translation is powered by AI.
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