Seven Argentine Doors
Photo Essay, Christian Denes, Jun 25, 2007
  
Some parts of Argentina are so dry that only the wind marks the passing of time. The remnants of a home—the roofless, uneven edges of the walls—could be five or 50 years old.
With few resources in these generally poorer areas of the country, most structures are built from readily available materials, such as the adobe bricks that come straight from the earth. This creates a synchronicity of textures and colors across the landscape; and nearly everything else, eventually, fades to match the ever-present beige.
  
It was because of this uniformity that the doors started to call my attention. Not only the solid, recently painted colors, but also the partially faded reds and greens that could not be created willingly on a palette.
Thinking of the tacky “doors” postcards one might find in a souvenir store in any city in the world, I started by only taking one photograph. But the facades of these homes kept calling my attention, and I soon found myself obsessed by their simple aesthetics. The project spilled over from my travels in the province of San Juan into my next trip to Salta and Jujuy. While the architecture changed slightly, the same color schemes remained. Like the iconic neighborhood of La Boca in Buenos Aires, simple colors had given these otherwise depressed homes their own personality and life.
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