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By saying that this house likes
to share its open spirit, its love for aestethics and its
generous open space with what its architects created in the
19th century, is tantamount to saying that these were, are
and will always be the principal values in the conception
of this wonderful house. From our choice of furniture, to
the carefull renovation work, and on to our endless quest
to create a convivial, warm atmosphere, our driving force
is to offer our guests an inspiring space, to awake or revatilize
their creative abilities.
The mosaics and the Art-Nouveau ornaments still on
display bear witness to the former times, times of sensibility
and its consequent perspective of the world, of a focus on
humaine and its natural artistical creations, of confidence
and of the yearning for idealogy. An epoch of great creative
and revolutionary force, a turning point in the arts and the
sciences, moving times highlighted by the shapes and colours
of Lautrec or Van Gogh, the pychoanalysis of Freud or the
architecture of Viena and Praga.
It was also during this period of history that the world witnessed
the most important growth and development in tango as a musical
art. Spontaneously and humbly born at the end of the 19th
century - on the patios of the local slums, tango nurtured
its first roots, identity and soul in the hands of the first
settlers of those areas, criollos, blacks and sons of immigrants
of diverse nations, each one bringing his own touch to the
inexplicalble mystism of tango. With a defined and established
personality, tango entered the 20th century, integrating new
instruments, artists and aficionados, originating from the
elite, before destiny sped it to the giddy heights that brought
its actual world-world recognition.
This is just a humble effort to preserve a crumb of the essence
of those glamourous and abundant times, for myself and for
those who still desire or simply feel nostalgia for the past,
I welcome you to this house.
Perhaps what i'm trying to say is best summed up by Manuel
Romero, in his 1923 tango song.
Buenos Aires, the queen of the Río Plata,
Buenos Aires, my beloved lands
Listen to...my song
that accompanies my life.
Porteno nights.
under your cloak of
laughs and cries
hand and hand they drift by.
Laughs and cries,
endless parties,
everything is forgotten
with champagne.
On leaving the milonga,
a little girl begs for bread...
There is a reason why the "gotán"
always cries in pain....
and for you, with so much desire
and curiosity to know Buenos Aires, I say: Welcome
to Defensa 1111, your home in BA.
Mariel Arandia
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