Fabian Llonch has a long history of emotions and knowledge. A path built between the voracity proposed by life itself. Notable musician in his youth, part of the best band of Fito, from the album Ciudad de Pobres Corazones and the Lalala that Paez recorded with Luis Alberto Spinetta and they played only once on a warm and superlative stage. Rock bands, Faculty of Architecture and international master’s degrees in the US that led him to start a family in New York and also experience the great shocks that the Big Apple offers to its inhabitants.
He was in Manhattan on September 11, 2001 and is there in the death explosion that the covid offered to those streets. “The coronavirus killed ten times more than the attack on the towersWhat we are experiencing is tremendous, although now the cases have dropped. Please wear masks, “he says over the phone from a distance.
A current photo of the Rosario architect Fabian Llonch
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Curiously, 19 years ago his mother from Rosario demanded that he, who lived in NYC, turn on the TV and find out what was happening. A plane had collided with one of the two towers of the Word Trade Center and there was chaos in the area. Fabián was trying to communicate with Gisella Vidalle (a notable Argentine architect in the US and also his wife) who was working at that time in a prestigious architecture studio located very close to the heart of Wall Street. Gisella passed with the subway at the same moment of the impact of the first plane under that mass of steel, glass and concrete. The transport did not stop until several stops later. She went downstairs, bought a disposable camera and did what the instinct of the one who sees everything asks of her: to treasure that unique, albeit tragic look.
Fabian remembers everything. “A lot of things have happened to us here. It looked like a movie. Communications were interrupted, my wife wandered on Wall Street scared and with the camera in her hand. There the second attack takes place and everything was maddening “, he says and suggests:” You should talk to her although she is not very conducive to getting into those memories. ” And so it is. The impact hits. The marks of horror travel paths of silence.
The coronavirus killed ten times more than the attack on the towers
The Rosario architect says that the city, due to its dynamics, “is strong.” How did that society survive that attack? “New York City has a certain way of being, it is a whirlwind of emotions that always pulls forwardIt is not a society that remains stagnant. It always moves forward. With a lot of force, a lot of money and a lot of resources. So that tremendous impact but it was overcome. There are tributes, memories, pains. But it went on. Many things have happened to New York: the attack, Hurricane Sandy (2012) and now the covid where it was the most punished city in the world. But look, even so now it is the city where we have almost no infections or deaths. It is always reinventing itself and it always moves forward ”.
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-The moment the covid appeared around the world, you said that in New York it was worse than the attack on the towers.
-I think so. By the numbers. On 9/11 3,000 people died; by covid more than 32 thousand. What happened on 9/11 was punctual and the attack was so severe that even seeing the images generate pain, they are strong. It is a knife that entered the psyche of the people leaving an unforgettable sequel. A terrible attack. Then we can discuss other things. That in memory was very marked. But the covid thing is different, it kills you silently, an invisible enemy. Here there were 600 thousand infected and that is tremendous. Comparisons are difficult but they give us some perspective. The distance to this moment is only going to be accurate with time.
Fabian and Gisella work as architects, teach and live in Brooklyn. Your children, your friends, your careers, your projects. Despite and with the sensitivity marked by those stories.
“Now we are with Fito (Paez) at a distance for re-recording old songs, including those from the album Ciudad de Pobres Corazones, so that has me very excited. To be able to play those songs again, ”he says from his New York home.
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“Take care, wear masks”, recommends with the accent that a Latino gives to his language after so many years there. Surely between Autocad (architecture tech tool) and guitars that remember the chords of songs inspired by one of our most painful tragedies. The ones in this fucking city. Ours.
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