Casa Chorizo Layout

The casas chorizo use a variety of layouts, but all have the common characteristic of having the rooms interconnected through a string of doors to go from one to the other room. These types of houses were typical meant to be used for a single family with 3 generations and have 4 or 5 rooms, a kitchen, a hall and a hallway entrance, the latter called "zaguán". Besides that, there is access to the patio from all rooms that has a narrow roof to cover from the rain and burning sun. These houses are mostly with just one floor, but some casas had already balconies installed to build later a second floor. In most cases that never got realized due to financial constraints, but there are on the other hand also many beautiful 2 floor buildings counted based on casa chorizo.

 There are two types of layouts*:

• Houses that start directly from the street side
• Houses that start first with garden space

The houses that start directly from the street side were typically built by the middle class families at that time. The houses measured 10 varas (8.66 meters)  x 25 or 50 varas (around 21 or 43 meters) and the entrance hallway directs you to the hall which has access to the front rooms, the patio and the first bedroom. As the entrance hallway is the first entrance to the house, it is built of marble plates and provides a warm reception to the guests.

Casa Chorizo Layout

The hall which is then entered has in some cases a colourful panel of glass in lead that provides the light from the patio. If the house measures a depth of 25 varas, then typical the house goes up to the kitchen and bathroom in the back that can be accessed through the patio gallery. With 50 varas depth, there could be a number of service rooms for the house personnel, located behind the kitchen and a little bit separated from the primary patio as the kitchen is typically a bit deeper in the primary patio to provide a bit of privacy. 

You can find many fotos of casas chorizo in the post "Fachadas Casa Chorizo". 

The second type of casas chorizo have a garden in front and do actually have the same layout as the first types, other then that the first set of rooms are replaced by garden. The houses with these layouts were typically cheaper to build on the same size plot of land as it involved less walls and space. Later still, the house could be extended with rooms in front, but would be a higher investment. These houses were typically built more in the suburban areas of the city and housed by the new immigrants that had fewer resources to live with. 

Casa chorizo layout with front garden

But as always, house building evolved over time, and sometimes there are intermediate styles that the front facades were built with open space to build later the rooms in between. Others built the houses with garden in the front of a full facade. 

    
*There is a very nice brochure about Casas chorizo called "Casas chorizo, Lineamientos para su preservación y puesta en valor", Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Julio 2000