The Palacio Ceci, a historic building in Villa Devoto where there is a school for the deaf, could be transformed into a space for selling wine, according to a plan by the Buenos Aires government to create a commercial pole that promotes wine activitywhich is rejected by the educational community that He called for a protest on Wednesday, the day local officials will come to ask for the keys to the establishment.
The demonstration will be from 11.30 in the public school “Bartolomé Ayrolo”, located in Lincoln 4305, with the slogan “El Palacio Ceci No Se Toca” and will have the participation of teachers, students, alumni, relatives and neighborsas well as Buenos Aires legislators from the Frente de Todos and representatives of the teachers unions of UTE and Ademys also anticipated their attendance.
“The Palace is the heritage of deaf people, we will categorically refuse to hand over the building, so the massive presence of everyone on Wednesday is necessary,” said a school teacher in a convocation message broadcast on social networks through of sign language.
the history of the place
The Palace was built in 1913 by the engineer Alfredo Ceci, who lived there with his family for 25 years, until he rented it to the Ministry of Education to serve as the home of Professor Ayrolo“an eminence of sign language for the deaf community in Argentina and Latin America,” according to Diego Cabales, a photographer and expert knowledgeable about the history of the emblematic building.
Ayrolo remained in the Palace until his death in February 1942 and since then the place has been transformed into a school dedicated to the education of children, young people and adults with hearing impairment and language disorders. that first it was property of the national State that expropriated it from the Ceci family and in 1996 it passed into the hands of the City of Buenos Aires.
Although in 2001 the Legislature approved a law that classified the place as a “Well of Architectural Interest for the City”, workers pointed out that decades ago construction began to show the deterioration of the facilities, which motivated that it was restricted only for the use of the administrative activities of the school, while the dictation of the classes moved to a new adjoining building.
During 2021, there were numerous visits by Buenos Aires officials, accompanied by contingents of people from outside the administration, to tour the building, which caught the attention of the school directors who, after consulting, received the news that, finally, there was a restoration project of the old Palace.
Larreta wants to take the building away from the deaf and dumb school to give it to the “Wine District”.
Yesterday the community embraced the school.
Guess how many media outlets there were?
On Wednesday they have another hug.
Let’s spread. #ElPalacioCeciNoSeToca pic.twitter.com/B3DquMntdG
– Eduardo López (@eduardolopezute) February 26, 2022
So it was that in December they had to remove everything related to school activity and take it to the adjoining building, while in January part of its original furniture was also removed from the Palace, in a process that was closely followed by a clerk due to the high heritage value of these objects.
“We were happy with the announcement, but later we found out that it was for the Wine District and that the building went from being in the orbit of the Ministry of Education to that of Economic Development”, a teacher specified in reference to the project to advance in the installation of shops and companies dedicated to the wine industry in a polygon in the neighborhoods of Villa Devoto, Villa del Parque and La Paternal.
The suspicion of the affectation of a new destination, meanwhile, had a greater hold last week, when an act was held in the Villa Devoto neighborhood for the celebration of the BA Harvest, which was led by a group of Buenos Aires ministers and the head of the Tourism and Culture portfolio of Mendoza, Nora Vicario.
In this framework, the provincial official reported on her networks the official activity she carried out in the city of Buenos Aires, which she defined as “A visit to Palacio Ceci, the future House of Wine in CABA. A space and showcase to show the wineries and wine tourism experiences of Mendoza.”
With this scenario, last Friday, the educational community held a “symbolic hug” to the place and announced a new mobilization for Wednesday at noon since, as they explained, “officials from the City Government will go that day to demand the delivery of the keys to the Palace.”
“They are going to sell a building that is iconic for being the first school for the deaf to sell glasses of wine,” lamented a former student.
For her part, the legislator of the Front of All Victoria Montenegrin accompanied the claim and pointed out that “we are going to embrace this school so that this outrage against public education is not carried out and we are going to fight so that the educational community achieves the repair of the Ceci Palace.”
From UTE, meanwhile, they stated that “once again, the head of government Horacio Rodríguez Larreta and the minister Soledad Acuña show that their interest in public education is just a marketing discourse.”
“We demand that this project be stopped and the building be restored, for the pedagogical project of the Bilingual Schools 28 and 29 and the Argentine Deaf Community,” they said in a statement.
