Automotores Orletti, Memory site and former detention center in Floresta, Argentina
Automotores Orletti is a building on Venancio Flores Street that housed a mechanical workshop on the ground floor, measuring thirty meters long with metal hooks fastened to the ceiling. The structure includes hidden rooms designed to contain sound and prevent it from escaping outside.
Between May and November 1976, this location served as an Operation Condor base where intelligence agencies from South American military dictatorships coordinated their activities. This brief period represents a critical phase of systematic repression across the region.
The site now serves as a learning space where visitors explore the realities of state violence through guided tours and educational programs. People come to understand how ordinary buildings were misused during a dark period.
Tours can be arranged by contacting the site in advance to schedule a visit at a time that works for you. It helps to allow enough time for a guided tour and to prepare yourself mentally for what you will learn there.
The wooden staircase to the upper floor survives intact, leading to rooms built with deliberate design features to muffle all sound. These architectural details reveal how deliberately the repression was planned and constructed.
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