The current building
The University City emerged among the urban planning ideas for Buenos Aires presented by Le Corbusier during his visit (1929), later contemplated in the Regulatory Plan of the City of Buenos Aires (1958).
The architectural project was prepared around 1960 by the architects Eduardo Catalano, Horacio Caminos), Eduardo Sacriste and Carlos Picarel, a team appointed based on an international competition. They conceived a set of four large buildings, which would be progressively delivered to the faculties most affected at that time in terms of space.
The first faculty to receive its building there was the Exact and Natural Sciences Faculty (Pavilions 1 and 2), which in 1966 gave the second floor of Pavilion 2 to Architecture after the fire in the Figueroa Alcorta warehouses. Due to the precariousness of this situation, in 1971 the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning received - unfinished - Pavilion 3, which was originally reserved for the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters "Facultad de Filosofía y Letras (UBA)") in order of priority.[5] The other two planned buildings were never completed, although there were never any announcements to do so. It progressively moved from its original building in the Manzana de las Luces, until it was completely installed in Pavilion 3 in 1973.
When in 1976 a coup d'état interrupted the democratic government and imposed a military dictatorship, the UBA was intervened and the new Dean of the FAU appointed was Héctor Corbacho"), who also taught technical drawing at the Navy Mechanics School, where one of the main clandestine centers for the detention and disappearance of political opponents operated in those years between 1976 and 1983. In 2005, it was estimated that in During the period of the dictatorship, the Armed Forces and the Police detained and disappeared 110 people from the Faculty community, including teachers, students and non-teachers.[6].
Meanwhile, the current and final headquarters of the FADU was slowly completed over the years. By 1985, once again in democracy, the rector of the UBA Francisco Delich created the Common Basic Cycle, which allowed mass entry to the University; and Pavilion 3 was transformed into one of its main headquarters. At the same time, new careers were established, such as Industrial Design, Graphic Design, Clothing Design, etc. while Berardo Dujovne was the Normalizing Dean. In 1986, Juan Manuel Borthagaray was appointed dean), who would continue in this position for a second period, until 1994.
In 1986, the FADU University Habitat Secretariat designed an Urbanization Plan in which Mederico Faivre), Carlos Maffeis, María Cecilia Ceim, Mario Sacco and other architects participated, but little or nothing was carried out: in 1988 the new FADU entrance was built with a staircase and commercial premises.[7].
Added to this was a comprehensive renovation of the building, which was carried out between 1986 and 1988 and meant its completion: different rooms were relocated, floors 3 and 4 were used for new careers and the mezzanine was completed (the work on which had been abandoned and unfinished since the previous decade).
In 1992, another modification occurred that affected the exterior appearance of Pavilion 3, when the cement parasols from the façade were removed, due to the corrosion they showed due to the lack of appropriate maintenance and the poor quality of their prefabrication. During the period 1996-2006, Bernardo Dujovne returned to serve as Dean of the FADU, later succeeded by Jaime Sorín").
In 2005, a bridge began to be built to reach a future coastal park; the iron structure was abandoned to this day without being completed due to legal issues involving the transformation of the projected park into an Ecological Reserve. Between 2007 and 2011, the establishment's dining room was dismantled to transform its physical space into three new classrooms, until the educational community managed to recover its original function.
Since 2009, the building has been undergoing restoration work by the National State, changing the glass in the skylights in the central courtyard, rebuilding the stairs (and other minor maintenance work), and building an access ramp to the basement for the disabled, since the FADU did not have one. Within this improvement, a ramp was also added to the pedestrian walkway that connects the Scalabrini Ortiz station of the Belgrano Norte railway with the access to Ciudad Universitaria.
In 2017, the inauguration of the new lecture hall of the faculty, Aula Magna “Prof. Arq. Juan Manuel Borthagaray” was held in the space below the central patio, in the basement. The faculty library rooms, previously on the third floor, were also moved to the new “Prof. Arq. Manuel Ignacio Net” Library, on the ground floor.