URBS VITA

Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo, Tucumán

Project idea

To Caress the City
The city is alive. It pulses with us. When we punish it, it punishes us back. But when we care for it, it responds with unexpected generosity. Urbs Vita is born from this ethic of reciprocity—not as an imposition upon a wounded urban fabric, but as a gentle gesture that seeks to heal without erasing.

This project is a sum of subtle but decisive actions, aimed at integrating past and present without denying either. Rather than forcing an aggressive, headless modernity, it seeks sober integration, resonating with the typologies of the former railway district. Gable roofs echo the industrial memory; building heights defer to historical hierarchies; over half the building is sunk into the earth, choosing not to dominate but to emerge gently from within the city.

The interior journey is gradual. A slow descent into emotion: sunken plazas, delicate ramps, spaces that invite introspection. The visitor is led, almost unconsciously, toward a monumental heart: a half-buried spherical chamber beneath a 20-meter-wide oculus, framing a tightly controlled sky—sacred, abstract, still.

But the architecture does not isolate itself. The building opens in all directions: it fractures into courtyards, narrow passages, and small urban forests. These are unusual spaces—meant for getting lost, for breathing in a dense city, for encountering an artwork or simply emptiness. Urbs Vita thus caresses the city like one tending to a wound—not by covering it, but by making it the new center of meaning.

Project description

-Urbs Vita: Breathing the City Through Its Wound
-Location: San Miguel de Tucumán, Tucumán, Argentina
-Site: “El Bajo” district — former Plaza La Madrid (popularly known as Plaza de los Burros) and the historic Central Norte railway station

-General Concept:

-Urbs Vita emerges as a response to an open wound in the urban fabric of San Miguel de Tucumán. The project is located in “El Bajo,” the only surviving fragment of the city’s original historic core. Unlike the rest of the downtown area, which was transformed by modern development, El Bajo remained untouched—not by virtue of preservation policies, but due to decades of socio-economic abandonment.

This area, scarred by structural poverty, overcrowding, and violence, was largely bypassed by speculative real estate pressures. As a result, its original urban profiles and spatial relationships remain remarkably intact. Urbs Vita proposes to intervene not by erasing this history, but by re-signifying it.

-Urban and Social Goals:

The proposal aims to catalyze a process of urban and cultural regeneration by introducing a high-level exhibition center with regional and international reach. This architectural landmark will function as a dynamic cultural hub, attracting a wide range of visitors and enabling new social, generational, and cross-border interactions.

In tandem, the project envisions the recovery of the old railway tracks as the path for a light tram system encircling the city center. This infrastructure will relieve vehicular congestion, reconnect peripheral neighborhoods, and generate dynamic flows across urban sectors.

-Implementation Strategy:

The historic Central Norte station and the neglected Plaza La Madrid are reimagined as active urban nodes for memory, movement, and gathering. The core principle is to feed the city so that it may nourish us in return—by activating symbolic, historical, and geographic potentials in a forgotten area and transforming it into a vital, democratic centrality.

Expected Impact:

Urbs Vita is more than an architectural intervention: it is an act of restitution. It proposes that in the very heart of urban marginalization, a new civic pulse may arise—integrative, inclusive, and deeply human. A cultural core that serves as a hinge between past and future, between exclusion and belonging, between stagnation and movement.

-Functional Program
The High-Level Exhibition Center is envisioned as a regional cultural hub for Northwestern Argentina, integrating exhibition, education, heritage preservation, and public services. The layout fosters a balance between permanence and temporality, indoor and outdoor spaces, reflection and social interaction.

Permanent exhibition halls:

Pre-Hispanic art of Northwestern Argentina

Modern and contemporary national art

Railway and industrial heritage museum

Sugarcane museum and regional agro-industrial history

Temporary exhibition spaces:

Large halls for international traveling shows

Flexible spaces for pictorial and thematic exhibitions

Outdoor sculpture gardens and open-air display areas

Archive and reading section:

Historical archive of Tucumán and the railway system

Quiet reading rooms

Garden of the Senticos and adjacent greenhouse

Support and institutional services:

Heritage restoration workshops

Administrative and curatorial offices

High-security vaults for valuable collections

Public and commercial interface:

Café and restaurant with outdoor terraces

Cultural center shop (bookstore, design store, etc.)

Open and semi-covered plazas for events and fairs

Integrated tram station and transit stops

Public parking (4,500 m², semi-underground)

Technical information

Technical Data Sheet
Project Title: Urbs Vita
Location: San Miguel de Tucumán, Tucumán, Argentina
Total site area: 37,500 m²
Total built area: 22,011 m²
Land Occupation Ratio (FOS): 53.14%

Project components:

New main building: 13,840 m²

Parking area (semi-underground): 4,500 m²

Restored railway warehouse: 2,271 m²

Historic building + extension: 1,400 m²

Author: Juan Nicolas Murguizur

Typology:
Cultural center / regional-scale exhibition building
Urban intervention with heritage restoration and sustainable mobility infrastructure

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