Beaux Arts in Buenos Aires
What we know nowadays as the “Paris of South America” is the result of the large collection that the Beaux Arts gave to Buenos Aires in the last 150 years. Since the last half of the 19th Century, this style took different directions, starting first with the epic public buildings and the huge palaces of the richest families of Argentina. Among these families are the famous Alvears, the Boschs, the Anchorenas, the Unzués, among others. A paradox of this new era for Argentina was that the country who received mostly spanish and italian immigrants also adopted at the same time the french styles throughout its whole history as the core of its architecture, in the beginning for the High Class and then for the rest of the country. So the first big palaces were born, like the Pereda Palace (Embassy of Brazil) and the Bosch Palace (US Embassy), among several examples that looked like small versions of the Chateau of Versailles on its interiors:
At the same time, the big public palaces like the Pizzurno Palace, the National School of Buenos Aires, and the gorgeous Palace of the Post Office who was designed by the architect Norbert Maillart:
This french influence quickly spread to the other sectors of the high class of Argentina. A different kind of french mansions was born: the urban buildings with a larger amount of floors and glorious domes. These are some of the examples of the neighborhoods of Recoleta and Palermo:
But what I consider the most interesting moment was when the Beaux Arts style went straight through the middle and low class people. When it became massive, the french culture also went deep down into the people and the roots of Argentina we see today. From the bakery shops, to the bars on the streets, and the european touch on almost every corner of every city and town of the country. This was also the times where the buildings started to almost surpass those of France and Paris, with the arrival of new extravagant domes and designs, like the cases of the Raggio Palace and the building of Callao and Lavalle streets:
...and the famous collection of 4 buildings who were built in strategic corners of Buenos Aires by the architects Dunant and Mallet: the Caja Internacional Mutua de Pensiones (Corrientes and Pueyrredón streets), the Asociación Española de Socorros Mutuos (Entre Ríos and Alsina streets), the Centro Naval (in front of the Pacífico Galleries, in the Córdoba and Florida streets) and the building of Córdoba and Talcahuano streets.
It is interesting to see how strong was the influence of France in the world, especially on the architecture of the high-class. Though Buenos Aires took the french styles to the extremes, you will probably find french-looking buildings and mansions in the best neighborhoods of the biggest capitals of the world. So after the Beaux Arts shined, between the last decades of the 19th Century and 1940, a new style came into the scene to break the perfection and to let the imagination fly, giving the architects a new freedom to design: the Modernism architecture. That’s what’s comming on the next week, so stay tunned. Meanwhile, a few more images of the Beaux Arts in Buenos Aires:
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