ARCHAEOLOGICAL INTERVENTION AT THE BUENOS AIRES CABILDO SOUTH COURTYARD: GRAPHIC DOCUMENTATION, DOCUMENTARY AND CARTOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS

The spatial transformations caused over the years in the site occupied by the current Cabildo of the city of Buenos Aires constitute the materialization of the changes in its functionality generated during the different political and institutional processes that crossed it, from the colonial period, until its reconversion and subsequent adaptation to the modern institutionality that occurred throughout the nineteenth century. This study focuses on the archaeological excavation developed at the Cabildo South courtyard at the end of 2017, where one of the three arches was demolished in 1933. The article aims to provide knowledge about these changes from a historical/archaeological perspective. For this purpose, different archival documents have been analyzed, among which are the Capitularies Acts of the Buenos Aires Cabildo, the historical cartographies (plans and maps) existing at the library of the institution, and those treasured by the Center for Documentation and Research on Public Architecture (CeDIAP). The information derived from the documentary analysis is compared with the inferences drawn from the archaeological intervention. For this purpose, we worked on the graphic documentation of the architecture -including planimetry and unevenness- of the walls identified in the excavation to generate a new plan as a result of the archaeological work. The historical cartography is confronted with the planimetric survey made from the structural remains found.