The largest market in Buenos Aires

Dorrego's flea market, located on the border between Palermo and Collegiales, has existed since 1986, about 15 years before Palermo became the Mecca of hipster consumption. Originally, and until 2006, it operated in a gigantic shed of narrow corridors, irregular floors, permeable ceilings and flourishing humidity. Every room with wire walls like those of a big birdhouse was packed with... Things. There is no more precise noun. While some had a specialty (Scandinavian furniture from the 1950s, for example), most were dedicated to the miscellany generated by the accumulation of everything that someone at some point assumed could be sold: lamps, crockery, shoes, magazines, watches, encyclopedias, dresses, bottles, old machines and even jewelry or musical instruments. If there was any order in those premises it was so complex that it could only have been deduced by four or five minds in the world and the stewards did not share their secret. That was part of the charm: looking, stirring, searching and letting yourself be surprised by what you could find.

This market was closed in 2006 by the government of the city of Buenos Aires to be remodeled and reopened within a few months. Administrative efficiency resulted in the fleeting process of refurbishing the site taking five years to complete. After being moved to an even more precarious place, the steders returned in July 2011 to their original shed, although completely renovated: now the plant obeys the ancestral rules of geometry, there is good lighting, wide accesses, softened cement floors, signposts and rigorous yellow lines that demarcate the space to be occupied by each shopkeeper.

Just as the old market was overwhelming, muddled, baroque in quantity and post-apocalyptic in its combinatory, and one did not know what one could find, in this new market everything is in place and everyone can easily realize where to find what they are looking for: something they can do just by looking, without getting their hands dirty. They are different pleasures, for a different type of visitors.

The market reigned last year has 143 posts spread over 13,400 square meters, in which it is offered the same as before but with some differences: the quantity is assimilable, there is organization, ranking; in short, there is order. Some notable places: Om Cristal (position 86), dedicated to glassware of the 20th century: glasses, jars, vases, cheeseries, chocolates, etc.; Suam (position 98) which houses huge collections of European, Asian and Argentine dishes; Héctor design (post 13), Scandinavian and American furniture; Rincón Azul (position 70), hardware, posters, bronze pieces; the Peruvian (post 136), French chairs, mainly Louis XV style. Most vendors take care of the restoration of the parts it offers. There are also posts dedicated to the original work of local artists. One of the most notorious is Tony Valiente, "the Lord of the hats", a survivor of the old market dedicated to the manufacture of very personal and curious headdress, wallets and vests. Tony also makes collages and paints. According to him, he found his vocation after receiving a visit from the spectrum of Carlos Gardel in his home.

It can be said that, in the transition from the old to the new market, its contents were edited, a selection appeared, the offer became more precise, clearly of superior quality. But in that process the feeling, probably illusory, was lost that here he could be waiting for a wonderful, forgotten and buried object under piles of things not so desirable. It is almost certain that there was never a Renoir for about seven dollars, as in the flea market in West Virginia, or lost acetates with unpublished recordings of Velvet Underground at 75 cents, as in Chelsea, New York, but the magic that created that possibility was present. Despite the reconfiguration of its offer, it remains the largest flea market in Buenos Aires, although there are no longer forgotten lagges of our culture at bargain prices but antiques and vintage objects, at the price of antiques and vintage objects.

The Dorrego flea market is located in the block between Dorrego, Alvarez Thomas, Concepción Arenal and Martínez streets. Open Tuesday to Sunday, 10: 00 A. m. to 7: 00 p. m. The entrance is free.

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