ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the film Así Nacio El Obelisco directed by Horacio Coppola. Coppola's short film deals with the construction of the Obelisco, a monument that has since become an iconic landmark of the city of Buenos Aires. His film shares aesthetic principles with the city symphony approach, as it portrays the construction of a monument in a spatial relation to the city of Buenos Aires and its inhabitants. In 1936 he was commissioned to photograph Buenos Aires for the city's 400th anniversary, and took the occasion to shoot a film, Asi Nacio El Obelisco, on his own initiative. The resulting images, especially his still photographs, including nocturnal street scenes and snapshots of urban life in the city center and its outskirts, are a unique record of Buenos Aires at that period.
