Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and, usually, killed. It is estimated
that around 5,000 people
were interned at ESMA during
the so-called “Dirty War.” Most
shocking of all were the cases
of pregnant women who
were detained here, allowed
to give birth, then killed so
that their children could be
given up for adoption to
“friends” of the junta.
As part of Argentina's
ongoing struggle to come to
terms with this dark era, the
government has committed
itself to the construction of a
“Space for Memory and the
Promotion and Defence of
Human Rights,” which is
housed within these grounds.
One of the many excellent restaurants in the posh Las Cañitas suburb
y
Museo Nacional
del Hombre
Calle 3 de Febrero 1370/8.
City Map
4
B1.
Te l
(011) 4783-6554.
@
60.
Open
10am-6pm Mon−Fri.
&
8
for groups only, book ahead.
∑
inapl.gov.ar
A small, well-maintained
museum, the Museo
Nacional del Hombre
is part of the Instituto
Nacional de
Antropología y
Pensamiento Latino-
americano, which is
dedicated to research
in the areas of social
anthropology and
folklore. The building
houses exhibits relating
to the prehistory and
contemporary status of
indigenous South American
and Argentinian groups.
These peoples include
the Mapuche, Tehuelche,
Diaguita, and numerous
others of the Tierra del
Fuego region, many of
whom were wiped out
by European colonizers.
Among the 5,000 exhibits,
some of which are reprod-
uc tions, are tradi tio nal crafts,
textiles, musical instruments,
masks, and costumes.
Noteworthy are the Mapuche
silver jewelry and Chané
masks, which are made
of the native
palo borracho
tree. The museum shop has
a small but excellent
crafts selection.
Novecento began to appear in
the area, setting in motion a
spate of exclusive gastronomic
openings. Soon they were
followed by bars, boutiques,
and apartment blocks.
Las Cañitas became established
as the social hub for the
well-heeled and its
model of development
was copied by Palermo
Soho and, later, San
Telmo. The Cañitas
Creativa street market on
Fridays and Saturdays is an
attempt to bring culture
and craft to the neigh-
borhood, but the accent
in the area is mainly on
cool clothes and
consumerism.
t
Las Cañitas
Calle Baez, Arévalo.
City Map
5 D2.
@
15, 29, 60, 64, 118.
Named after the sugarcane
that used to grow here when
the land was part of General
Rosas's
(see p111)
sprawling
private estate, Las Cañitas is a
fashionable and pricey resi-
dential barrio. Although
wedged between bustling
Belgrano and several lively
avenues, including Báez and
Arévalo, the streets here are
relatively sedate and dead ends
keep traffic levels down. During
the mid-1990s, ultra-hip restau-
rants such as Soul Café and
Chané mask, Museo
Nacional del
Hombre
Villa Freud
An oft-repeated claim is that Buenos Aires has more shrinks
per capita than any other city on earth. Psychoanalysis first
became a prominent feature of intellectual life in the 1920s,
and among the many European immigrants were a large number
of avant-garde philosophers,
academics, and psychiatrists. By
the early 1970s, psychoanalysis
had established itself as a popular
university field.
In recent decades, television
shows portray visits to a
psicólogo
(psychiatrist
)
to be as ordinary an
experience in the daily life of
middle-class porteños as going
to a tennis lesson or meeting for
a family barbecue. As the area of
Palermo around Plaza Güemes is
typically middle class and full of
psychoanalysts and psychiatrists, it
has become known as Villa Freud.
Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist
and psychiatrist
