9 Architectural Landmarks in Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires‘s first opera house, the Teatro Colón, opened in 1857. By 1888, the theater was closed, and the building had been sold to a bank because the local government realized the city needed a larger and more modern facility. Construction on the new building began in 1889 and took almost 20 years to complete. The resulting testament to opulence overcame a series of staffing issues before completion: the project was begun by Italian architect Francesco Tamburini, taken over by his assistant Vittorio Meano upon Tamburini’s death, and completed by Belgian architect Jules Dormal upon Meano’s assassination.

The majestic building, completed in 1908, is typical in style of those built in Buenos Aires after independence in 1816, drawing on classical European style and in particular that of the French and Italian Renaissance. The building is vast, measuring 26,250 square feet (2,439 sq m). Its imposing facade is harmoniously divided into three distinct sections adorned by windows, columns, arches, and architraves and is capped by a gable roof. Several entrances allow access for both performers and opera-goers. The main entrance hall has a white marble floor that leads to a wide staircase providing access to the stalls, which then divide to lead up to seating spread across seven levels. The building also houses two other ornately decorated halls. The horseshoe-shaped auditorium is richly decorated in red and gold, and seats 2,478, with room for 500 people standing. Suspended from its frescoed dome is a 23-foot (7-m), burnished bronze chandelier lit by hundreds of light bulbs. (Carol King)

By the start of the 20th century, the Argentine railway system was one of the largest in the world. Retiro Mitre is the northern terminus of Retiro Station and is one of the three large terminals in Buenos Aires.

The Retiro Station project, completed in 1915, crystallized the debates around the changes in British architecture in the period between the Victorian era and World War I. Edwardian architecture combined the possibilities of industry with the Baroque. This particular case reflects the Classical education of British architect Sydney Follett, who studied at the Edinburgh School of Art.

The facade is rich in references to buildings such as the National Museum in Cardiff, the Westminster Central Hall, and Cardiff City Hall. Defined by the colonnade, there is first the access hall, where English Baroque religious architecture is combined with the late Victorian ticket counter. This space, covered by ceramic pieces matching the original floor, provides the transition to the waiting room, a basilica-like hall modulated by a complex decoration of giant ordered columns. The two 820-foot-long (250 m) steel-and-glass sheds that cover the platforms create an outstanding space. A third train shed and a wing on Avenida del Libertador were part of the original project plan, but neither was ever built. The Retiro Mitre Station was declared a national monument in 1997. (Juan Pablo Vacas)

Situated in the Retiro area of Buenos Aires, the Torre Monumental, formerly known as Torre de los Ingleses, is a monument erected by the city’s Anglo-Argentine community for the 1910 centenary celebrations of the country’s May Revolution. A design competition for the tower was won by the British architect Sir Ambrose Macdonald Poynter, grandson of the founder of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Almost all of the materials used to construct the tower—cement, Portland stone, and red Leicestershire brick—were imported from England. The foundation stone was laid in 1910, and the tower was completed in 1916, its construction having been delayed by the outbreak of World War I.

The 248-foot-high (75.5 m) tower is constructed in an ostentatious Palladian style that was undergoing a revival at the time. The main entrance faces west and is adorned with stone emblems representing the British Isles: the Tudor rose, the Scottish thistle, the Welsh dragon, and the Irish shamrock. More stonework can be seen one floor up: the British emblems of the lion and the unicorn, the motto of the British monarch, Dieu et mon droit—“God and my right”—and the motto of the English Order of the Garter, Honi soit qui mal y pense—“Shamed be he who thinks evil of it”—with shields representing Argentina and Britain. At the top of the tower are four clocks on the four sides, each being 15 feet (4.5 m) in diameter. Five bronze bells weighing three tons each are rung every 15 minutes in imitation of the bells of London’s Westminster Abbey. After the 1982 Falkland Islands War between Argentina and the United Kingdom, the tower was renamed the Torre Monumental, or Monumental Tower. (Carol King)

The construction of Villa Ocampo in the late 1920s in Buenos Aires’s Palermo Chico district caused a scandal. Like most Latin American cities of the period, Buenos Aires was populated by structures influenced by European classical architecture. The arrival of a building instead influenced by Modernist architecture, and specifically Modernist architect Le Corbusier, was shocking. Many locals thought that the building’s austerity was more akin to a stable or a factory than a home.

In 1929 Le Corbusier was invited to give a series of lectures in Buenos Aires. Prior to his visit, the local writer, critic, and socialite Victoria Ocampo commissioned what would be the first Modernist house in the city. She invited Le Corbusier and local architect Alejandro Bustillo to submit plans for her house, although she had already created her own design. She picked Bustillo.

The resulting white, cuboid three-story structure is built of stucco-covered brick with rectangular windows; large, plain, white rooms; and terraces overlooking the sea. In keeping with the Modernist aesthetic, Bustillo adopted a no-frills approach with clean symmetrical lines and smooth surfaces. Bustillo, however, was more interested in conventional Neoclassical architecture than experimenting with Modernism, and it is said that he disliked the house so much that he refused to have his name on it. (Carol King)

This spectacular, 393-foot-high (120 m) apartment block was for many years the tallest building in South America. Upon completion in 1936, it was also the largest reinforced concrete structure in the world. Its dramatic profile, in part generated by the step-backs demanded by Buenos Aires’s zoning restrictions but also reflecting the shape of its difficult, wedge-shaped site, is one of the most distinctive in the city. The Kavanagh Building’s narrow prow, pointing toward the River Plate, has been compared to that of an enormous gray ship.

When built, the Kavanagh Building was ahead of its time structurally, and it also offered unparalleled luxury for affluent Porteños—a nickname for the natives of this port city. The block, with 105 apartments arranged in six wings on 30 stories, was equipped with European oak floors and mahogany doors, central air conditioning, 12 elevators, a central telephone exchange, and even refrigerated rooms for meat.

The apartments on the upper floors have terraced gardens enjoying views over the adjacent park, river, and city. The largest of these terraces is that of the apartment on the 14th floor—at around 7,530 square feet (700 sq m), the only one to occupy a whole floor of the building. Not surprisingly, this was occupied by the extremely wealthy Porteño who commissioned the block in 1934, Corina Kavanagh, and its construction almost bankrupted her.

By the 1930s, Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world, and Buenos Aires had come to see itself, like New York, as a city that epitomized the confidence of a modern new world. The radical, severe, stripped design of the iconic Kavanagh Building—still a highly coveted address today—is the most celebrated symbol of this aspiration. (Rob Wilson)

In 1953 Mario Roberto Álvarez and Macedonio Oscar Ruiz presented the winning entry in a competition, organized by the Buenos Aires city government, for the city’s new theater. By the time of its opening, the Teatro General San Martín had already become a key piece of Buenos Aires architecture due to its strict adherence to the stylistic rules of Functionalism and Modernism.

The facade’s main block is made up of seven levels of offices with a cinema on the top floor. Three double-height halls reveal the building’s structure. The independent volume that houses the Sala Martín Coronado is the main theater. This lies above the main access hall, extending it into the building.

Located one on top of the other, each theater space is an independent structure. This makes it possible for the building to house extensive non-theatrical, cultural programs—exhibitions, studios, storage spaces, offices, cafeterias, a parking lot, and a theater school.

Considered the emblematic work of Rationalist architecture in Argentina, the building, completed in 1961, brings together extraordinary formal resolution and a social commitment befitting its time and context. The importance of its contribution to Brazilian, and indeed, South American architecture is undeniable. (Pablo Bernard)

At the end of 1959, the Bank of London and South America was one of the most important banking entities in the world. On the occasion of its centennial, it held a private competition for its new headquarters in Buenos Aires. The guidelines for the competition not only laid out the functions of the building, but also emphasized flexibility and image. The experienced architectural firm S.E.P.R.A. presented the winning project.

The original idea reflected the desired flexibility: a large virtual volume to house all the activities in a single continuous space whose parts would interact metabolically. At more than 282,900 square feet (26,280 sq m), the building becomes part of the urban landscape by using the facades of neighboring buildings as its boundaries. The lower levels, under the sidewalks, contain the vaults and the service areas. The next three levels make up a complex hall for serving the bank’s customers; this hall extends into three other floors that are used as offices. The two upper levels house the management and a cafeteria.

The basement supports not only the hall’s large projections but also the facade’s expressive pillars and the two main circulation areas. A large, 85-foot-high (26 m) platform rests on these pillars, and from it the three upper levels of offices hang over the main space, reducing the number of inner columns. This innovative proposal involved constructing another small branch of the bank, where the structural solutions were worked out on a full-size model. (Juan Pablo Vacas)

In 1961 a competition was held to design a new building for the National Library of Argentina. The brief held that the site—a public park located on what had been the presidential residence during the Perón government—would maintain its character, and the trees had to be conserved. The contract went to Clorindo Testa, Francisco Bullrich, and Alicia Cazzaniga de Bullrich.

The library and public park are at the top of a slope on the edge of an urban development. To accommodate the large-scale program and keep the public space, the building was split in two, half underground and half raised off the ground. The rectangular volume that contains the reading rooms is raised above a plaza. Hanging below, partially suspended by steel tensors, the administration areas and auditorium make a complex ceiling to the big open plaza and main entrance. The book repositories are underground to protect the books from sunlight and allow for future extensions.

Construction began in 1972 and continued for two decades. The heavy concrete structure was combined with smaller building units, access staircases, and ramps to the covered plaza and terraces that generate enclaves for reading and recreation. This made it possible to provide the monumentality required for this type of project while still maintaining the natural scale of the park. (Florencia Alvarez)

Located on the slope of the historic section of San Isidro Labrador to the north of Buenos Aires, this work by Mathias Klotz challenges the tolerance of the home in relation to the skills of modern architecture. Although a small supporting section is semi-underground, three-quarters of Casa Ponce is cantilevered and floats above the ground.

The Casa Ponce, completed in 2003, is not only a spectacular architectural structure but also an overt metaphor for the fetish of contemporary architecture: the cantilevered box. On a 21,528-square-foot (2,000 sq m) lot in a dramatic rectangular shape, Klotz resolves the notoriously unchallenging single-family housing program with a provocative twist: he provides, on the narrow lot, open views of the Río de la Plata, located behind the property. The layout of the parallel bars along the length of the lot struggles with the problematic decision not to divide the lot in two.

A compact concrete bar rests on the edge that it shares with the lower-level glass box in the middle, all the elements seeming to float on a small semi-underground volume where the service rooms, the machine rooms, and the laundry room are housed. The bedrooms are on the upper level, with its fabulous garden deck, while the glass volume serves as the living room. (Pablo Bernard)