Villa Hortensia (Rosario)
Encyclopedia
Mansion
A mansion is a very large dwelling house. U.S. real estate brokers define a mansion as a dwelling of over . A traditional European mansion was defined as a house which contained a ballroom and tens of bedrooms...
in the city of Rosario
Rosario
Rosario is the largest city in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina. It is located northwest of Buenos Aires, on the western shore of the Paraná River and has 1,159,004 residents as of the ....
, province
Provinces of Argentina
Argentina is subdivided into twenty-three provinces and one autonomous city...
of Santa Fe
Santa Fe Province
The Invincible Province of Santa Fe, in Spanish Provincia Invencible de Santa Fe , is a province of Argentina, located in the center-east of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise Chaco , Corrientes, Entre Ríos, Buenos Aires, Córdoba, and Santiago del Estero...
, Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
. It is located on 1917 Warnes St. in Barrio Alberdi
Barrio Alberdi
Alberdi is a primarily residential barrio of Rosario, Argentina. It is located in the north-east of the city, between Rondeau Boulevard and the Paraná River. In the current administrative division system employed by the municipality, it belongs in the North District.This barrio was initially an...
, in the north-eastern part of Rosario. It was built in 1890 by architect Boyd Walker for José Nicolás Puccio, founder of Alberdi. It was then sold to Ciro Echesortu, and then in turn to Alfredo Rouillon, married to María Hortensia Echesortu (from whom the house got its name). The wealthy Rouillon family employed Villa Hortensia as a summer residence, taking advantage of its proximity to the Paraná River
Paraná River
The Paraná River is a river in south Central South America, running through Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina for some . It is second in length only to the Amazon River among South American rivers. The name Paraná is an abbreviation of the phrase "para rehe onáva", which comes from the Tupi language...
and its large, tree-shadowed gardens.
Maintenance of the mansion was neglected until, in 1989, it was declared a National Historic Monument. At the time it was under a serious threat of being condemned. The Villa was acquired by the Municipality of Rosario on 30 May 1996 in order to transform it into an administrative center, as part of an official decentralisation
Décentralisation
Décentralisation is a french word for both a policy concept in French politics from 1968-1990, and a term employed to describe the results of observations of the evolution of spatial economic and institutional organization of France....
plan. Villa Hortensia was restored, emphasizing the original plans and materials, and was re-opened as the first Municipal District Center
Districts of Rosario
The districts of the city of Rosario, province of Santa Fe, Argentina are administrative divisions created to decentralise the workings of the municipal government....
on 13 October 1997.
Villa Hortensia hosts a citizen assistance office, a delegation of the Municipal Bank of Rosario
Municipal Bank of Rosario
The Municipal Bank of Rosario is a bank in Rosario, province of Santa Fe, Argentina. Its central offices are located in the downtown area, on San Martín St., and there are several additional offices throughout the city...
, and offices of the water, natural gas and power companies, where the neighbors of the North District can pay for these services, place requests, etc. The mansion also has a marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
office. This allows for citizens to carry out administrative business near their homes, instead of travelling downtown to the main municipal offices (a 40-minute bus ride). A survey conducted a month after the inauguration of Villa Hortensia found that the citizens of the North District used to travel an average of 8 km for administrative business before, a distance which has been reduced to only 1.5 km. Eighty percent of the citizens surveyed also consider the service in Villa Hortensia better than the one formerly provided in the downtown offices.
See also
- Districts of RosarioDistricts of RosarioThe districts of the city of Rosario, province of Santa Fe, Argentina are administrative divisions created to decentralise the workings of the municipal government....
, with an overview of the city's decentralisation plan and the Municipal District Centers.