Pasaje Lanín in Barracas: the mosaic street of Marino Santa María in Buenos Aires

In the southern part of Buenos Aires, on the border between Barracas and La Boca, two blocks of paved street have over the years become one continuous work of art. This is the Pasaje Lanín, which runs roughly from the level of calle Brandsen up to the Avenida Suárez: forty-odd façades of houses still lived in, covered in colour and Venetian mosaic. It is neither a tourist set nor a fenced-off pedestrian street: here people come and go from their homes, park, hang out their washing, and the walls around them are tiles of glass and broken ceramic.

How it began

It all started with a single house. The visual artist Marino Santa María, born and raised at number 33 of the street, where he still lives and keeps his studio, decided in the early 1990s to transfer one of his abstract paintings onto the façade of his own workshop. The neighbours, rather than complaining, asked to have one too. The project proper took shape in 1998 with photomontages simulating the painted façades, and it was inaugurated on 19 April 2001, carried out with about twenty assistants.

The Venetian mosaic

The technical turning point came in 2005, when Venetian mosaic and broken ceramic worked with trencadís joined the paintwork — the same Catalan technique of irregular fragments made famous by Gaudí in Barcelona. The reason was practical more than aesthetic: Santa María recounts that having to repaint everything every five years would have been unsustainable, whereas mosaic withstands the time and humidity of a neighbourhood a stone's throw from the Riachuelo. Today a good part of the façades has already adopted this format, and as you walk you can clearly see the stratigraphy: still-painted walls beside surfaces entirely made of tiles.

An alternative to Caminito

On 7 November 2013 the Legislature of the City of Buenos Aires declared the pasaje a Site of Cultural and Touristic Interest. The inevitable comparison is with Caminito, a few blocks away in La Boca: there the colour has turned into souvenir stalls, tango for tourists and entry tickets. Here, instead, the art clings to private homes, and the difference is felt in the rhythm, made of real front doors and few people about. It is worth pausing on the details: faces, fish, abstract spirals, and realising that each façade was conceived together with the people who live there.

At the end of the street, towards the corner with Suárez, stands La Flor de Barracas, a restored historic café where you can sit on thonet chairs after the walk: we are in the city's Design District, and the combination of old factories and workshops is evident throughout the neighbourhood.

Getting there

How to get there: Barracas is not directly served by the metro, so the most convenient way is the colectivo (several lines run along the Avenida Suárez) or a taxi or ride app, especially if you arrive in the evening. You can also reach it on foot from Caminito, since the two neighbourhoods border each other. For up-to-date bus times it is best to use BA Cómo Llego, the city's official journey planner, entering "Pasaje Lanín, Barracas" as the destination. The visit is free and takes half an hour, but since it is a residential street it is best to go by day and with discretion: you are walking past people's homes.

Sources: turismo.buenosaires.gob.ar, La Nación, ccbarracas.com.ar.