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INTRODUCTION:
The greater ancient building of the city of Rosario, that survived almost intact hundred thirty years, it is being destroyed today by
the groups of vandal youths, occupied illegally by homeless persons and ransacked in actions cover by the most complete impunity.  To demonstrate it enough to mention that, after remaining dissafected of use as warehouse, around the end of 1992, in that summer were deducted to him the lightningrod and all their wiring, probably the most eldest copy of the city, of almost 7 meters high, located on the España St. front.  The administrative offices of the lessees, let in perfect state, they have been converted into a dirty room being roughdressed all glass, door, window or blue roller that there is in them.  The intact roof of the station has suffered also the break in good part from its pieces, especially glasses...

All this in almost eighteen months.

Nobody took some collection on the building, in spite the journalistic notes, the warnings and the negotiations begun by the ARAR in the different organizations.  The nonchalance seems the better allied of the destruction of this authentic historical milestone of the City-Port-Railway Node that it is located to almost ten blocks of the Rosario downtown.  Nevertheless it be
have presented an Ordinance project by four councilmen in October 1993, yet in study, so that is declared what is Municipal Historical Monument and is concretized in him a Railway Regional Museum of way such of preserving the building and within him carry out though it will be a minimal historical reference of the railway center but important of the interior of Argentina, intimately bound to the history of all the Region.  The idea is to give a worthy destination to the building and to the scarce exemplary of rolling stock material of that era that yet they have not been roughdressed or sold as scrap.
 

IDENTITY CHIP SHEET OF THE BUILDING (made taking by model the Architectural
and Urbanistic Patrimony Inventory of Rosario -1990-):

Denomination:  Shed #10 of Argentine Railways.
Address:            North Prolongation of España Street over gullies of the Paraná River.
Dimensions:      Without exact data (approximately 80 x 28 meters).
Project:              Without data.                 /       Year:  Without data.
Constructing:    William Wheelwright      /     Year:  1863-4.
Legal Situation: National Property.
Uses:                  * Original:  Passenger & Goods station of the Central Argentine Railway.
                            * Following:  Warehouse (Railway own, then rented).
                            * Current:  Vacated (homelesses living in the ex-offices).

AREA OF PROTECTION:
Architectural Value:  It does not is more buildings of this style in the Country, those which yet were surviving were demolished in 1993 to duplicate traces it of the Wheelwright Avenue; of
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they only it was saved part of the wood cobbles, employed in the remodeling of the Montenegro (fmr. Pinasco) Square; they were lost the molten iron columns, the girders, the cranes of the underground warehouses and inclusive the old water crane of the primitive locomotive shed of the Central Argentine Railway.

A same type can deal in the Caldera (Chile) Station also work of William Wheelwright.
 

Meaningful Value:  First station of the Central Argentine Railway, of Rosario and of the interior of the Argentine Republic.

Urbanistic Value:  It can be integrated perfectly to any development plan of the zone, especially to the second stage of the “Park of Spain” so much as Monument, as Museum or with other use (in the preliminary design of the Catalonian Architect Oriol Bohigas were put what is as a great restaurant).

Urban Situation:  Main building with small satellite constructions.  Their longitudinal axe is parallel to the tracks that join the Rosario Central and Norte stations, at the same time parallel to the Wheelwright Avenue.  From the Avenue of the can appreciate in all their magnitude.  Privileged location, with sight to the Paraná River and toward the city, in the middle of a great open space.  At level of the river, at the bottom of the gully where was the load dock exist several fishing clubs.

Compatible uses:             Cultural;
                                            Monument-Museum;
                                            Commercial (should not, to judgement of the Author).

CONSERVATION STATE:
Structure:  Satisfactory (is only a bracket damaged in the eaves).
Cover: To regulate -recoverable-.
Facade:  Middle.
Interior:  Middle.
Interior elements:  Middle.
Hygienic conditions:  To regulate -recoverable-.

Typological Data:
The station is outlined as a great rectangular plant ship, with two central tracks -one of those which has been covered with concrete plates- with interior buffer and other with a rear door, toward the third track (external, under the eaves) and then toward a fourth track (to open sky).  On the rear exist two leant constructions, a to each side of the passing track.  The one which gives to the main line that is going to Rosario Central would be original.  To both is acceded from the interior of the shed for each small doors.  The two lateral facades present six sliding doors, of two leaves each one.  Those which give to the river leave to an able height to load/unload trucks or wagons;  those
which give to the opposite side are at level of the parking beach of paved
bulk.  The front -on the España Street prolongation- has two sliding doors of
two leaf each, and the rear other of the same type;  were permitting the access and trains exit and the close of the building.  The facade of the Wheelwright Avenue side has coincident pilasters with the supports of the girders, while that of side of the river has leant the columns-brackets that sustain the eaves, entirely metallic.

Constructive Technical Data:
Mass structure of press bricks (perimetral) and of melted iron columns (central axe) that they are intended at the same time to drain of ceiling.  Of the riverside is conserved the original seen brick.  All the openings of the doors have masonry arches, though the leaves of those are straight; on the doors of the riverside yet are seen the door numbers in white bottom with characters in black emphasizing on the red brick.
The interiors are of painted plastering, with smoothed concrete pavements terminated in the edges by wood.  The lateral eaves protects the contiguous external track to the building, it is mounted on columns-metallic brackets with metallic rods and covers of iron-zinc sheets; it is found deteriorated the fourth bracket, apparently by have been used to hang an extremely heavy element.  The ceilings are of French tiles (Brand: “Pierre Sacoman – Marseille”) and panels-glass tile (many of those which have been destroyed) the girders are metallic of round iron, taking shape of a double ceiling in two slopes with central drainage, the columns with soul-conduit of the system.  All the doors are sliding, of two wood leaves, with rails in the upper part and guides embedded in soil.  Possess iron-works-hobble in the center and interior handles in both leaves.  The doors are of wood, but the external side was covered with iron-zinc sheets, with the same guide system that the doors.  These as well as the previous operate regularly.
 

The following statement was prepared by ARAR at the end of April 2000, distributed to all the local and national media and officially presented to the Executive Department and the Hon. Municipal Council of Rosario, when was publically announced the calling to bidding commercial activities in this historical building:

"SHED #10"  or  AS IS ADULTERATED
THE ROSARIO CITY HISTORY IN 2000
The Rosario Municipality there has publisheded in an only announcement of the Daily  Newspaper "The Citizen & the Region" on April 15, 2000 -textually- the call to "Gastronomic Premises Grant" through the "Public Bidding that has as a goal:  Remodeling, amplification, and commercial development of Gastronomic Complex, according to Process 12102-D-2000, of the immovable that has by location:  East Edge of the Park of the Collectivities and Spain Street Prolongation.  The same is opened the day May 11, 2000 to 10:00 hs. in Buenos Aires St. #711, First Floor, Belgrano Salon.  Cost of the Sheet:  $1000 (one thousand Pesos).  The Acquisition and conference of the same is accomplished in Buenos Aires St. #853, Third Floor (Immovable rented in the Mail Office Palace, where operate dependencies of the Secretariats of Planning and Municipal Public Works), in the Department of Municipal Real Estate Grants.  Duration of the Grant:  15 (fifteen) years, with option at 5 (five) more years.  Monthly Amount: without base to proposal of the offerers.  More the annex parking zone.  It will be admitted to propose functional and distributive variates in the interior of each building”.  To the immovable bidden is described what is in the sheet as "...ancient building of railway origin...", and below is identified what is as "Peñaflor" shed.  Until here a call to current and common public bidding, unless therefore is NOT said in the sheet neither in the announcement.

To begin this history have of transmitting us some nineteen years back, more precisely to 1981 when the Urban Studies Center of Rosario (CEUR) with the Architect Oscar Mongsfeld as Directing and the ARAR were requesting the preservation of the immovable in question that is designated "Shed Number 10 of Argentine Railways", number that it would be assigned by the Central Argentine Railway company to his First Passenger Station, when was dissafected of the original use after the construction of the "Rosario Central" Station.  In August 1982 ARAR goes to the Architecture Study Martorell, Bohigas & McKay, designers of the Park of Spain, so that envisaged in their sketches the conservation of the primitive building, by virtue of his noble origin and long useful life.  Thereinafter, ARAR introduce to the Management of the General Mitre Railway a proposal so that is rescue the ancient station to convert it into headquarters of the Railway Regional Museum, time after was elaborated a plan in three stages for their gradual execution, indicating specifically that there would be of be avoided to introduce incompatible activities with the cultural nature of the Project.  The ARAR petition to the Mitre Railway for the security and the preservation of the Shed #10 and its sorroundings was reiterated in February 1983 when the building yet were found leased to the "Peñaflor" Wineries that was using it as deposit, what prevented to concretize the proposal in that moment;  the case was tried in a hearing with the Manager, as well as with the President of the Argentine Railways Company, to who was insisted periodically in this regard on successive years procuring that is protected the integrity of the historical immovable.
 

Therefore, already then it were known that were not tried of "an ancient building of railway origin" but of the most ancient railway station existing in the Country and at the same time the building of more age of the city, built approximately in 1863.  Origin of the first interstate railway project of the Argentine Federation -visionaries fruit as Urquiza, Campbell and Wheelwright- of where departed the first train in May 1, 1866 beginning of the modern Rosario, commercial and industrial and national logistical knot.  For if all this would be little, its dimensions are monumental and, surprisingly, that is all right preserved until the present, even with the rail tracks in the interior and their original carpentry.  His style is singular, with scarce examples in the world by answering to concepts of the origins of the railway in first half of the Ninteenth century.  One of the few comparable is that of Chilean port of Caldera, of the Copiapó to Caldera Railway, built previously by who conceived and executed the "Great Central" in our lands.  Their inspiration transmits us to the first United States railways, but is tried as a rule of already disappeared buildings that only we can confront by ancient engravings.  In Rosary, other examples of that architecture were demolished to open the second hand of the Central Coastal Avenue from Spain St. until Moreno St. among 1993 and 1994.

But the Architect Mongsfeld and the ARAR not only requested the preservation of a "shell" of building, but also were wanting to preserve the "soul" of the place and propelled that in that shed were accomplished the First Argentinian Railway Museum, idea that it was taken by the Argentine Railway directors to accomplish it in a station of Buenos Aires...  Happened the years, in Rosario was not given to him importance to the topic, since, in the architecture and the local urban planning the word “Railway” was and it is almost a wrong word, unless by their valuable lands.  Argentine Railways became a State company in liquidation, was created the Managing Entity of Railway Assets / ENABIEF to liquidate the railway assets remaining of the grants, was approved the National Law #24.146 that regulates the railway real estate transfer to the local governments and entities without profit end, and the old "Shed #10" continued in the abandonment, until be usurped partially and used as garbage burning place by the homelesses of the city downtown.  Was running 1993 when ARAR it insisted presenting in the Municipal Council an initiative for the accomplishment of the Railway Museum in that building of maximum historical value.  The same was presented as Ordinance Project by the then Councilmen of the Radical Civic Union Daniel Luna, Rafael Ielpi, Roberto Ovejero and Wence Steger with #50.876-P-1993 of Income Table, October 28 of that year.  In their First Article was requesting "that the Executive Department proceed the preservation of the designated “Shed #10”, its attached structures and adjacent and interior tracks declaring it Municipal Historical Monument, in attention to the precedents previously mentioned".  In the Second Article was requesting that "the Executive Department will destine that sector and its constructions for site of a future RAILWAY MUSEUM, being summoned for the definition of the executive project of the same to the ARAR, along with the institution or offices that the Municipality decide, for keep company.  After be approved in the Council, was turn to the Executive Department, Planning Secretariat, where was "lost" in the bureaucratic booths and was not formalized it, neither was taken no action in this regard, being cited that "the zone of the Rosario Central Station were found in a judicial conflict" something that then was certain, but was not obstacle to protect the good in question.

To shelter it, in spite the irresponsibility of the local officials, on July 7, 1994 was approved, to instances of the Taborda Senator, in the Provincial Legislature the Law #11.153, whose Promulgatory Decree #1896 of July 15, 1994 declares "Provincial Historical Monuments" to all the railway stations in the towns and cities of the Santa Fe Province.  The pioneer Law, says in their Fourth Article:  "Authorize to the executive branch of the Province, so that through the relevant organizations, agree with the Municipalities affected, the conducive means to preserve those constructions and the considerate elements (of Provincial interest) in the Second Article".

In the Seminar of the World Council of Monuments and Sites / ICOMOS, that was developed in this city the days June 16-18, 1994 and whose local coordinator was the Architect Gabriel Asorey, by then to cargo of the "Architectural and Urban Patrimony Municipal Preservation Program" and local delegate of the "National Museums, Monuments and Historical Sites Commission" was presented the ARAR motion: "Must be preserved Shed #10, first railway station of the interior of the country", documented with a file delivered to be accomplished the registration, in the one which were consisting the stated and the corresponding photographs.

From 1994 until 1997, ARAR collaborated it with the Municipal Council, the Municipal Executive Department and the Municipal Preservation Program, in the elaboration of the Ordinances that declared "Municipal Historical Patrimony and / or Of Municipal Interest" the "Antártida Argentina" (former Fisherton) and "Sarratea" Stations of the ex Central Argentine Railway, and "Sorrento" of the ex Santa Fe Railway.  It was elevated simultaneously a report of all the railway real estates that clearly were needing be protected, being the posture of the ARAR that is elaborated a global Ordinance, but falling the suggestion in broken sack.  Sadly many of the buildings list were, and continue being, ignominiously demolished in the zone understood among "Rosario Central" and the "Scalabrini Ortiz Park" at the same time that disappeared large furniture goods contained in them, in opened rape to the Provincial Law.  Of all what is stated, nothing was taken into account in the elaboration of the "Strategic Plan for Rosario" / PER, among 1998 and 1999.  In the year 1997 after be promulgated the Municipal Decree of creation of the  "Commission the Transportation, Production and the Railway Culture Museum”, members of the ARAR also him communicated to the Coordinator of the Municipal Cabinet, Dr. Rubén Lozano, the value of the building in question, so that took into account it in the urban interventions that he was coordinating in that moment.
 

And thus we arrive at present, April-May 2000, with the news of the fact that, after arranging the transfer by purchase of all the zone of the Station "Rosario Central", the Rosary Municipality, immediately launches the bidding to accomplish the "Kitchen of the Collectivities".  With some rigorously and unnominated drawn designs presented, only with a label that prays "Rosario Municipality – Direction of Architecture Works" without company neither explanation in none of the plans of the professionals involved, appears the project to convert the interior of the more ancient surviving railway station of Argentina into a “restaurant saloon”.  Their bases are: the multiple cooking stoves and the also sanitary manifolds disfiguring that enclosure only, the eradicated tracks of his interior and its sorroundings, and yet with possibilities of improvisations to proposal of the grantees, relying on their smell to make money in practical form.  No remaining clear if, to improve the sight to the Paraná river will be eliminated the riveted iron brackets that support the marquee.  As colophon the great cobbles yard that is conserved intact will be integrated to the continuous of a parking that is at the point the Avenue precisely over the four tracks that accede to the "Rosario Central" Station.  Curiously it was not let to make, neither is wanted to make nothing, by the greater example of the Rosario Early Cultural and Architectural Patrimony, after the terrain of the Cathedral Church, but it is notable the conscientiousness put to concretize businesses with him.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
It is clear the address of the actions of who today are filled the mouth speaking and writing of generating "Emblematic Buildings" and are pawned in denying our origins, adulterating it most legitimate than we possess.  They are own apprentice ideas of Nero, irresponsible using material resources that they are fruit of generations work, and of the Public Patrimony that they would have to administer with republican austerity.  It is tried therefore of the denial of the origins, a railway shed is "a few thing" to be the cradle of a city with greatness deliria, simply by representing the work and the effort, today replaced by the imagination anxiety, the speculation and the market-god.

The folly, by using a benign term, that it is being by perpetrating is double:

1) Instead of revaluateing the Rosario Architectural and Urban Patrimony, is lied, is it trivialized, banalized and demotes, with the excuse of saving the shell of an old building of little value, with a so profitable economic equation as all those of known private initiative ("La Florida" Resort, “Mariano Mereno” Long-Distance Omnibus Station, Wood´s Yard, etc., etc.);

2) Be consider twenty years in grant a parking yard on the access tracks to the better Railway Station located for Regional Public Transportation of Passengers, being annulled the existing and certain possibility of linking to short term Rosario with their Region, defined from the Nineteenth Century, with local services that were reaching from that Station until Cañada de Gómez, Casilda, San Lorenzo and San Nicolás, that only it could be canceled by the dictatorship in 1977 and whose use has been countersigned by the Regulatory Rosario Plan yet outstanding, as well as by the study of the SYSTRA-ATEC Consulting for the Rosario Municipality in 1998.  It is detained once again the cultural and material progress of our City, and the Region bound to her.

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