The Mar del Plata style, also called "Mar del Plata chalet",[1]​ is an architectural style used mainly in chalets developed between the 1930s and 1950s in the city of Mar del Plata, Argentina. The production of these homes also extended to the neighboring cities of Necochea and Miramar "Miramar (Buenos Aires)").[2]​.

The style arises from picturesqueness, especially its aspect related to the Californian chalet, because it shares some characteristics with the so-called ranch style house originating in California, United States. Thus, the Mar del Plata chalet is related to the picturesque architecture of the original summer residences built during the first decades of the spa town.[3]​.

In the first years of the century, social mobility in Mar del Plata was very dynamic, even higher than that perceived in the city of Buenos Aires, due mainly to an incipient middle class, which depended on activities such as tourist services, the construction industry, and commerce.[4] It was during this time that this style of house emerged, not as a result of a process led by technocrats "Technocracy (bureaucracy)"), but as an achievement of the middle class, who translated his ideals into a new architectural form that reconverted the main characteristics of the great mansions of the belle epoque to a domestic scale.[5]​.

The large chalets were initially the work of builders with extensive experience in works of the eclecticism "Eclecticism (art)") typical of large summer estates,[6] locally known as "mar del Plata picturesqueness".[7] However, the new style was quickly adopted and validated by qualified builders and young architects of the city, such as Auro Tiribelli, Córsico Piccolini and Raúl Camusso.[8]​.

The style is characterized by the following applied materials and technologies: fronts with quartzite worked in the "Baldassarini" style (broken cane technique), gable roofs with mainly Spanish tiles, textured whitened plasters and the use of chopped wood in different sectors. In the juxtaposed composition of volumes, the porch, the attached garage, usually with an attic "Attic (window)") at the top, the gables and the chimneys, sometimes only decorative, stand out.[9]​.