Argentina’s former secret detention centres: Between demolition,modification and preservation

Abstract

This article addresses the architectural debates surrounding three Argentinian memory museums: the Rosario Memory Museum, the People’s Memory Centre (El Pozo) and ESMA (Navy School of Mechanics). The sites of these museums were used as secret centres of illegal detention, torture and death during the last military dictatorship in Argentina, known as the Process of National Reorganization (1976–1983). The author first examines the specific symbolic dimension of secret detention centres as the material spatial embodiment of the terrorist state. The sites are then discussed in terms of their preservation, modification or destruction as the proposals advanced by the various human rights groups are compared. She argues that the debates surrounding sites like these tend to be a consequence of larger political and social tensions in the public sphere, and that, as sources of conflicting national collective memories, they may be seen as offering alternative spaces to those created by globalization and neoliberalism.