Before the speeches, an audiovisual was exhibited that compiled moments in Arana’s life, in particular, his performance as Mayor of Montevideo. In addition, at the event, councilors who shared his bench in the 2015-2020 period, gave him a plaque and two messages were read: from the Vice President of the Republic, Beatriz Argimón; and the former mayor of Montevideo, Ricardo Ehrlich, both outside the country at the time. In her speech, the Mayor of Montevideo reviewed Arana’s long career in his many facets, both academic and political, and highlighted that “in all of them he transmitted and continues to transmit a unique passion«.
He also recalled his performance, in 1981, “when he toured Montevideo with an audiovisual called A city without memory that it was a public response to a gesture of cultural barbarism”, with which the Dictatorship disaffected buildings from the status of National Historic Monuments, because the city built was only a space for business at a time when the neoliberalism of the regime was rampant.
Carolina Cosse highlighted that Mariano Arana taught that the city is made by those who inhabit it and that the city is also made in us and affirmed that «This is the commitment that we reinforce every day to continue working on this collective construction called Montevideo; with commitment to the legacy we receive and the obligation to leave realities, proposals and questions to future generations, at the level of humanity that we have and also projecting a long cry for freedom of which you, dear Mariano, form an essential part«.
In his words of gratitude, Arana joked with his usual sense of humor and humility, stating that “I didn’t know that I had done so many things»and he went through memories and anecdotes, in particular, recalling the remodeling work of the Solís theater» an emblematic work for Montevideo.
