Memories anchored in the landscape: reclaimed anchors at Buenos Aires city and Gran Buenos Aires (Argentina)

Anchors are a fundamental safety element of a ship, fulfilling the anchoring and mooring function. They have been consolidated as a symbol associated with navigation and, abstractly, with stability and hope. Their image has also been vastly portrayed in several raw materials throughout different spatial and temporal contexts , and frequently used in heraldry. This work focuses on anchors that are no longer used on board but are reused in a novel way by placing them in the urban landscape. Here, we present a survey and analysis of a set of anchors in secondary contexts -which we call "reclaimed"- located in Buenos Aires City and Gran Buenos Aires. On the one hand, we carry out an investigation of their informative potential in terms of chronology, through its morphological and typological analysis. On the other hand, symbolic constructions associated to the anchors are explored, through documentary sources and interviews. Anchors are studied here as possible memory vehicles that may imply ideological disputes, reflected in materiality. A particular case study of a monument displaying an anchor -located on the Quilmes riverbank- is described.