A Totem for Gesell

A giant totem welcomes visitors to the city at the access to Villa Gesell on the right.

As we arrived at the city, we noticed its presence but our rush to reach our hotel made us just look at it as we got past. Two days later, on one of our walks around the surroundings, we got to that point and had a second look.

Boasting very simple lines and cubic shapes, its twelve meters of height include figures concerning the village and its development through the years. The sea, the wood and fishing representations, as well as a man, a woman and a child standing for a family, are engraved on the cement.

As we had a closer look, we discovered don Carlos Gesell inside this work. He was a pioneer whose job was to settle the sand hills and to found a village that succeeded in defeating the indomitable nature of this place through great effort. He appears as an old man with white hair and beard, looking into the horizon. Multiple recognitions have been paid to this person and the totem is another one.

Just like the native figures in Canada, the totem is crowned by a bid with open wings and a sign reading “Villa Gesell” on top.

Made by the German sculptor Pablo Hannemann, this is much more than a masonry work. It represents the appreciation of a community for the figure of a visionary man. Carlos Gesell once said: “The delight of success is bigger when those difficulties others have wanted to sort out in vain are actually sorted.”.