76 Utban Coding and Planning there exists nowhere a greater wilderness of buildings with such a minuscule quantity lof green oases asin the capital of Argentina’ (Collins, 1995). Interestingly, both men, praised the urban quality and way of life ofthe casa chorizo, the half comrryard house that had become the most important type for urban development from the late nineteenth century, and that Jonge Lis Borges extolled in his writings ("The patio isthe incline by which the sky spills into the house’ (Borges, 1996)) (sce de Gregorio, 2006). Whereas Le Corbusier's plans imagined a radical and destruc c restructuring of the metropolis, Hegemann focused on the need for adequate urban regulations and attacked the code of 1930, responsible according to him (or creating chaos and jeopardizing the lower- scale structure of the city ‘Until the 1910-1920s Latin American cities could be described in general terms as “horizontal cities’, Buenos Aires was a paradigmatic example, Given its large dimensions (abour 120 m by 120m). its basic urban block or manzans had developed and densified overtime asa solid block to be occupied by low-rise patio houses extending to the very interior ofthe block. This was the logical solution to avoid inefficient and excessively large spaces at the centre of the blacks (See Diez, 1996, pp. 105). The challenge of the late nineteenth c ary and carly twentieth century was to develop new types of buildings that would be denser and allow extensive use of the ground while providing air and light a che interior of the block. In Buenos Aires, architects were the leaders of typological innovation as building codes, until 1945, controlled the building Figure 4.10, Wier Moll, Building Saco ot Avenida Corrientes, Buenos Altes, 193, (Souee Postar cllction Jean-Frangois Lajeune)