Carmen Córdova

Carmen Córdova belonged to an ideologically progressive family, the daughter of writer Cayetano Córdova Iturburu [es] and Carmen de la Serna, sister of Che Guevara's mother, Celia de la Serna [es]. She grew up surrounded by an intellectual and cultural world, which led her to love the arts and study several of them. She dedicated 14 years of her life to dance, studying at the National Conservatory. She wrote prose, painted, and dabbled in acting. While studying painting at Emilio Pettoruti's studio, she met her future OAM colleague, partner, and husband, the architect Horacio Baliero [es], with whom she had three daughters. She died in Buenos Aires in 2011.

In 1994 she was elected dean of the FADU unanimously, but despite that support she was unable to achieve her dream of an academic program that was closer to the ideals of the Bauhaus that she admired so much. It was a disappointing experience in political terms, causing her to resign along with her vice-dean in 1996, and led her not to want to be involved in any project or public activity in the last years of her life. In 2001 Carmen Córdova wrote the book Memorias de modernidad (Memoirs of Modernity) as a rebellious response to an unjust world that did not satisfy her and with which she totally disagreed.

In 1986 she was elected academic secretary to dean Juan Manuel Borthagaray at the Faculty of Architecture, Design, and Urbanism [es] of the University of Buenos Aires (FADU-UBA) for two terms, after which she herself was elected dean. During her term the organization of the house of studies was completely changed. Graphic Design and Industrial Design programs were created, based on electives that were dictated in architecture. In 1989 the programs Clothing and Textile Design, Landscape Design, and Image and Sound Design [es] were added to the Faculty's offerings, the latter as a result of work shared with the architect Graciela Raponi and Córdova's passion for cinema. After almost 30 years, despite the resistance of more conservative and elitist academics and professionals, the creation of these programs proved to be a success that reflected the variety of students' interests.

Like many OAM members, Córdova was a university professor, a post she left after the bloody action against students by the dictatorship in 1966, known as "La Noche de los Bastones Largos" (The Night of the Long Batons).

Córdova and Baliero won the competition to design the Colegio Mayor Universitario Hispano Argentino Nuestra Señora de Luján in Madrid, which led them to move there with their three daughters in 1966. They partnered with Javier Feduchi Benlliure [es] to complete the work, which was modified in its materiality according to the climate and local technological capabilities. In 2004 the Government of Spain declared it to be a heritage building.

In those years she traveled to Brazil to present the Revista Nueva Visión, in the company of Horacio Baliero. They spent six months there, getting to know the most influential architecture of the day, especially that of Oscar Niemeyer, for whom she felt a great admiration. These influences are reflected in the contest the couple won in 1961 for the Mar del Plata cemetery. This included a wing for an Israeli cemetery, which was transformed into a chapel following the military coup in 1966.

Carmen Córdova (1929–2011) was an Argentine architect who was part of the Modern Architecture Organization [es] (OAM). In 1994 she became the first woman dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Design, and Urban Planning [es] at the University of Buenos Aires. In 2004, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Fondo Nacional de las Artes.