Trading Nations: Architecture, Informal Empire, and the Scottish Cast Iron Industry in Argentina

该提案是对19世纪末和20世纪初阿根廷的苏格兰预制建筑铁艺行业进行的研究。众所周知，在布宜诺斯艾利斯等城市，在1880年至1930年之间建造的相当数量的建筑基础设施包括来自苏格兰铸造厂的装饰和其他铁器部件。尽管这些建筑中的许多还没有得到充分的记录，但其中的苏格兰元素现在被认为是阿根廷文化遗产的一部分。该项目旨在首次深入分析这些元素(以及生产这些元素的苏格兰铸造厂)对阿根廷建筑环境的重大贡献。从19世纪末到20世纪初，阿根廷经历了主要由于欧洲移民而出现的最大的人口增长时期。这种人口结构的变化是戏剧性的，伴随着该国历史上最大的城市化进程。当时建造的许多建筑都采用了现代的类型，因此依赖于新形式的建筑技术。预制铁制品的使用在欧洲非常成功，但在阿根廷几乎鲜为人知，这对这种现代化进程至关重要。当时，苏格兰对市场需求的创造性反应以及非凡的生产和出口能力，在预制铁制品行业享有主导地位。拉丁美洲是该行业的主要市场之一，阿根廷在快速工业化、财富增加及其对英国国家利益的战略重要性方面走在了前列。事实上，阿根廷的城市化之所以成为可能，要归功于从外国引进的复杂的经济投资、专业知识和建筑技术体系，特别是英国和法国。苏格兰工业是这一进程的主要贡献者。约翰·弗雷德里克·贝特曼的案例就是这种知识和专业知识的转让对阿根廷建筑环境产生影响的一个例子。贝特曼是英国供水行业的先驱，为包括格拉斯哥在内的几个主要城市设计和建造排水和供水系统。他的设计基础被世界上许多最大和最重要的城市采用，包括布宜诺斯艾利斯。此外，贝特曼的公司设计并建造了布宜诺斯艾利斯最重要的公民纪念碑之一--帕拉西奥德拉斯阿瓜斯(Palacio De Las Aguas)[1894年]，融合了沃尔特·麦克法兰拥有的苏格兰萨拉森铸造厂的预制铁元素。其他例子包括阿根廷北部的糖厂。这些仍在运营的工厂中，约有三分之一是在大规模工业化和农业现代化期间设计和建造的。它们证明了苏格兰钢铁工业的工业实力，这些建筑和机械大多是在那里预制和制造的。在探索阿根廷19世纪建筑实践的这些特殊方面时，这项研究不仅将打开一扇窗，让人们了解布宜诺斯艾利斯等城市的建筑遗产，还将揭示英国和阿根廷之间贸易网络的一个重要维度。这将把阿根廷的建筑和更广泛的建筑环境定位为经济发展、现代化和地缘政治的更大力量的交汇点。这一点在研究十九世纪末二十世纪初英国在更广泛的大西洋世界的帝国和帝国外(非正式)影响的学术方法的背景下是重要的。

The proposal is a study of the Scottish pre-fabricated architectural ironwork industry in Argentina during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is known that a considerable amount of the architectural infrastructure built between 1880 and 1930 in cities such as Buenos Aires comprised decorative and other ironwork components from Scottish foundries. Despite the fact that many of these buildings have yet to be fully documented, the Scottish components in them are now considered part of the cultural heritage of Argentina. This project aims to provide for the first time an in-depth analysis of the significant contribution these elements (and the Scottish foundries that produced them) made to the built environment of Argentina.From the end of the nineteenth century through to the beginning of the twentieth, Argentina experienced its largest period of population growth owing mainly to European immigration. This demographic change was dramatic and was accompanied by the largest urbanisation process in the country's history. Many of the buildings erected at this time assumed modern typologies and therefore relied on new forms of construction technology. The use of prefabricated ironwork, widely successful in Europe but virtually unknown in Argentina, was crucial to this modernisation process.At the time Scotland enjoyed a commanding position in the pre-fabricated ironwork industry, facilitated by its creative response to market demand as well as its extraordinary production and export capacity. Latin America constituted one of the industry's principal markets, with Argentina leading the way through rapid industrialisation, increased wealth, and its strategic importance to British national interests. Indeed, Argentinean urbanisation was only made possible thanks to a complex system of economic investment, professional expertise, and construction techniques brought from foreign countries, in particular Britain and France. Scottish industry stands out as a leading contributor to this process. One example of the impact this transfer of knowledge and expertise had on the built environment in Argentina is the case of John Frederick Bateman. Bateman was responsible for pioneering the water supply industry in the United Kingdom, designing and constructing drainage and water supply systems for several major cities, including Glasgow. The basis of his design was adopted in many of the world's largest and most important cities, including Buenos Aires. Furthermore, Bateman's company designed and built one of the most important civic monuments in Buenos Aires, the Palacio de las Aguas ('Palace of the Waters' [1894]), incorporating pre-fabricated iron elements from the Saracen Foundry in Scotland owned by Walter McFarlane. Other examples include the sugar factories in the north of Argentina. Approximately one third of these factories still in operation were designed and erected during this period of mass industrialisation and agricultural modernisation. They stand as testimony to the industrial might of the Scottish iron industry where the majority of these buildings and their machinery were pre-fabricated and manufactured.In exploring these particular aspects of nineteenth-century building practice in Argentina, this study will open a window not only onto the built heritage of cities such as Buenos Aires but also expose an important dimension of the trade network between Britain and Argentina. This will posit architecture and the wider built environment in Argentina as a phenomenon at the intersection between the greater forces of economic development, modernisation, and geo-politics. This is important in the context of recent academic approaches to the study of Britain's imperial and extra-imperial (informal) influence in the wider Atlantic World during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.