Some facts about Palacio Barolo
The works were initiated in 1919 and finished in 1923. The building is monumental: it comprises 32 meters of width x 42 meters of length, with exit to two parallel streets: Avenida de Mayo and Hipólito Irigoyen. Between both streets, a pedestrian alley with commercial shops is in place. The roofed surface is 16,630 square meters, distributed in 18 floors and 2 basements. The structure was entirely made of reinforced concrete, a technique with no precedents in our country by that time.
The Barolo Palace was the first building considered as the “first high building” in Buenos Aires, with 100 meters. The Palace finishes at the top with a rotating lighthouse —installed in 1923— of 300,000 spark plugs. The lighthouse announced great events, like the result of a boxing match held between the Argentinian, Luis Ángel Firpo, and the North American, Jack Dempsey, in 1923. The Toro Salvaje de las Pampas threw his opponent away the ring for 17 seconds. However, the match continued and then Dempsey defeated Firpo.
The particular style of Mario Palanti combines modern elements —a concrete structure, floors aimed at organizing the offices, bow-windows— he cites buildings —for example, in his volume at the “Rajarani Temple”—, or take motives of different moments of the architecture history. This variety of styles and mottos is due to a severe symbiology.
Even more surprising it may result the program used to organize his work. Palanti worked in an obsessive correspondence with the poetry and partitions and hierarchies of Dante universe: Pythagoras, Aristóteles, Ovidio, Horacio, Virgilio and the Testaments.
With the Barolo Palace, Palanti rendered an homage to Dante Alighieri as the best representative of the Latin genius. Thus, the Palace is full of analogies and references to the Divina Comedia. Palanti adheres to a tradition initiated with the Gothic Cathedral: the building is an illustrated scale model of the cosmos. “The floor of the building is built based on the gold section and the gold number. The general division of the Palace and the Divina Comedia is found in three parts: Hell, Purgatory and Heaven”.
The building was inaugurated in 1923. Unfortunately, Luis Barolo could not enjoy the complete work since he died a few time earlier. In 1997, it was officially declared as a National Historic Monument and few years ago –in 2002– it was entirely restored following the original plans.
**It was the highest building in Buenos Aires during one decade, until the construction of the Kavanagh building in 1936. It is located at Avenida de Mayo Nº 1370.
Photo by Jeff Barry:
February 21st, 2007 at 5:02 pm
[…] More lovely pictures from Karine this week, featuring the Palacio de Tribunales building, a pretty San Telmo antiques shop, the Falklands war memorial monument in Plaza San Martin, and some Palacio Barolo facts and pictures, one of my favorite buildings in Buenos Aires, on one of my favorite streets, Avenida de Mayo […]
April 3rd, 2007 at 7:08 pm
[…] April 4th, 2007 at 2:08 am (Uncategorized) Mi Amor and I went to Palacio Barolo, a building designed to depict Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. Since I’m so connected to Italia and Firenze, visiting this building was a necessity. We had a nice guy take us through the building and up to the top for a fabulous view over the city. Visit this fine blog to learn a little more about Palacio Barolo. […]
April 14th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
[…] Meanwhile, Cafe Palacio Barolo is very calm and relaxed, but also based in a beautiful building with a lot of history in its own right, so it is certainly another good alternative option to Tortoni if you are in this area. For those of you that can’t wait for my future post to learn more about fascinating design and history the building itself, fellow Buenos Aires bloggers Robert and Karine have both posted some excellent photos and information in the past. […]
December 24th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
\”Hi, I just wanted to say what a great site this is, I came across your site while searching around on Google. Your post, Some facts about Palacio Barolo has some good info! Thanks again, keep up the good work and have a great Monday!\”.
July 18th, 2008 (2 weeks ago) at 10:00 am
[…] and the original domed lighthouse (lit by 300,000 blazing lamps) was visible from Uruguay. Palanti combined record-breaking design with innovative, modern building techniques; he was one of the first architects to use reinforced […]
June 6th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
excellent visit and guided tour is amazing!!
I recomend