Villa Ocampo is a mansion and the former house of Victoria Ocampo (1890–1979), one of Argentina's greatest cultural figures, founder and director of Sur magazineVictoria Ocampo: una vida dedicada a la cultura on cultura.gob.ar. 6 Apr 2020.
The house is located in Béccar, a city in San Isidro Partido, Argentina. After being restored by UNESCO, it became the "Casa Museo Villa Ocampo" in 2013.
History
The Villa was built in 1891 by Manuel Silvino Cecilio Ocampo (1860–1931)Manuel Silvino Cecilio Ocampo Ocampo on familysearch.com, Victoria's fatherCuando los padres de Victoria Ocampo se conocieron... en el funeral de Sarmiento by Daliar Ber on clarin.com. 11 Sep 2020.
Following the deaths of Victoria's parents—Manuel Ocampo in 1931 and her mother, Ramona Aguirre, in 1935, the inheritance was divided among the five sisters (Clara had passed away at age eleven due to juvenile diabetes). And since Angélica —Victoria's sister, born in 1892— was exceptionally close to the writer, "they never divided the portion they both received, which consisted of the entire house plus the adjacent hectare".
Villa Ocampo was also a regular meeting place for Argentine writers, among them Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares, who met there for the first time in 1931. It was the inspiration for the Blue Villa in Alain Robbe-Grillet's 1965 novel La Maison de rendez-vous.
The house has been owned by UNESCO since 1973, after Victoria donated the property.Villa Ocampo on unesco.org. It was fully restored during ten years (2003–13) and opened as a cultural center.
Villa Ocampo was designated National Historic Monument of Argentina in 1997Decreto no. 437/1997 on argentina.gob.ar.
Style Its architecture is eclectic, combining influences of British and French origin. The house is surrounded by an 11,000 m historical garden and hosts an important collection of art, furnishings and a library of 12,000 books, photographs, letters and personal papers of Victoria Ocampo.
Notable guests Originally the summer house of the Ocampo family, it became Victoria Ocampo's permanent residence in 1940. The house is famous for its list of distinguished visitors who came to Argentina invited by Victoria: Rabindranath Tagore, Igor Stravinsky, Le CorbusierLa Villa Meyer en Buenos Aires: reformulación tipológica en el proyecto de Le Corbusier para Victoria Ocampo by Gardinetti, Marcelo, on tecnne.com. 19 Feb 2021, Albert Camus, Gabriela MistralVilla Ocampo, legado cultural y símbolo emblema de la historia mundial by Maria Belen Archetto on vogue.mx. 26 Oct 2021, Graham Greene, Federico García Lorca, André Malraux, José Ortega y Gasset, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Saint-John Perse (Alexis Léger), María Elena Walsh, Indira Ghandi, Octavio Paz, Pablo Neruda, among many others.
Gallery
References