Fundación Larivière
A Shed in La Boca — But What a Shed!
By Fernando Diez
The decision to establish the Fundación Larivière on a plot within an industrial block of La Boca was a bold move, undertaken with the advice of Facundo and Paula de Zuviría. Since the 1980s La Boca had steadily lost population, and the shutdown of its port delivered a heavy blow not only to the activities tied to it but also to local commerce and gastronomy. The cantinas that once crowded Necochea Street survive only as a memory. Two decades ago, Fundación Proa’s bold bet in settling at the Vuelta de Rocha revived the idea of La Boca as a neighborhood tied to art. Later, La Usina del Arte joined in, giving rise to a second pole of revitalization. Theaters, small galleries, and other initiatives reinforced this notion. Today, the Fundación Larivière, located near La Usina del Arte and just a few blocks from Av. Almirante Brown, helps to affirm the emerging vocation of this second pole.
The building houses the Larivière Collection of contemporary Latin American photography, a treasure of more than 3,000 works, together with a bookstore offering the publications of Ediciones Larivière. Its most important space—occupying half of the footprint—is the soaring double-height exhibition hall. On the upper level, the library and collection treasure are joined by a multipurpose room facing the street.
The architects sought to reflect the site’s distinctive urban condition, balancing the roughness of its surroundings with the delicacy and refinement of the works to be displayed. In sympathy with the neighborhood, they chose materials with an industrial expression for the façade, yet up close the sophisticated execution in folded anodized aluminum becomes evident—eschewing literalism or mere mimicry.
The central entrance echoes the straightforward gabled form, revealing an axis that establishes the symmetry organizing the entire building. The sliding door and upper shutter share the same proportions, and their shifting positions generate changing compositions that bring sudden dynamism to the seemingly restrained façade. When both are opened, they reveal a double-height central aperture; in other positions, they playfully disrupt the symmetry.
In contrast, the entrance area and bookstore are clad in oak with gentle finishes. Passing through them leads into the exhibition hall, where the effect of contrast reappears: in its proportions, materials, and form, the space recalls a shed with a gabled roof carried by trusses. Yet, as Jorge Silvetti noted in his inaugural remarks, “a shed… but what a shed!”
What appears to be a straightforward spatial resolution conceals a sophisticated abstraction: the trusses were designed not as conventional triangular frames that would create a virtual ceiling, but instead as rhomboidal forms. Likewise, the standard crossbracing that would normally be interspersed among the trusses was replaced by a continuous lower tie, concealed from view.
White reinforces this deliberate abstraction, tempered by the exposed ducts of the air-conditioning and drainage systems. The entire exhibition hall is lined with a tall baseboard—actually a gypsum-clad secondary wall, its height strictly aligned with the mezzanine—that conceals services while providing a continuous surface to facilitate exhibition mounting. It is lifted just a few centimeters off the floor to allow for the return flow of conditioned air.
From the exhibition hall, the mezzanine library appears as a finely crafted wooden box. Movable panels allow a visual relationship between the two spaces, their opening underscoring the symmetry of a centrality explicitly anchored at the lower chord of the trusses.
On opening day, during the exhibition Los sueños de la mujer araña, curated by Alexis Fabry, the connection between the bookstore and the exhibition hall was closed off to visually isolate the two spaces. Yet in this photographic record they appear as one, joined in a continuity that extends all the way to the street. Both configurations were anticipated in the project as part of its intentional flexibility.
From the entrance hall one shifts to the side to reach the oak staircase leading to the upper floor. Its landing once again overlooks the exhibition hall, as part of a promenade architecturale that carries us toward the meeting room and the library. Between them—directly above the ground-floor bookstore—lies the collection treasure, designed for security and climate control. Detached from the party walls to avoid the risk of infiltration, it rests on two concrete piers. By its central position and precious contents it forms the heart of the building, even though its presence goes almost unnoticed. Mirroring the staircase on the opposite side is the elevator and freight lift, with double entry and dual purpose (goods and accessibility).
The materials achieve a careful balance between delicacy and ruggedness. Oak, attuned to the refined content of the library and bookstore, contrasts with the exposed concrete walls. An almost white terrazzo floor, its polished surface reflecting light, stands in counterpoint to the visible installations of the exhibition hall and the sheet-metal façade.
On opening day, visitors overflowed onto the raised sidewalks—a kind of atrium freely connected to the interior through sliding doors, a way for the Foundation’s activity to spill into the neighborhood. The subsequent purchase of the adjacent property, an industrial shed to serve as support, made it possible to extend the elevated walkway which, with its railing, becomes a virtual balcony over the street. Yet another gesture underscoring the architects’ conviction in the essentially urban nature of the Fundación Larivière’s commitment to La Boca.
