Palacio Barolo is a landmark office building, located at 1370 Avenida de Mayo, in the neighborhood of Montserrat,

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. It stood as Buenos Aires' tallest building for more than a decade until the construction of the

Kavanagh Building The Kavanagh Building () is a famed skyscraper in Retiro, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Designed in 1934 by architects Gregorio Sánchez, Ernesto Lagos and Luis María de la Torre, it is considered a pinnacle of modernist architecture. At the time of ...

in 1936. Its twin brother,

Palacio Salvo Palacio Salvo ( en, Salvo Palace) is a building at the intersection of 18 de Julio Avenue and Plaza Independencia in Montevideo, Uruguay. It was designed by the architect Mario Palanti, an Italian immigrant living in Buenos Aires, who used a simi ...

, is a building designed and erected in

Eclectic style Eclecticism is a kind of mixed style in the fine arts: "the borrowing of a variety of styles from different sources and combining them" . Significantly, Eclecticism hardly ever constituted a specific style in art: it is characterized by the fact t ...

, built by the same architect in Montevideo. This building was declared a national historic monument in 1997. Currently, the building has several travel agencies, a Spanish school for foreigners, a store that sells clothes for tango, offices and studios of architects, accountants, lawyers, and designers.

History

Italian architect Mario Palanti was commissioned to design the building by the empresario Luis Barolo, an Italian immigrant who had arrived in Argentina in 1890 and had made a fortune in knitted fabrics. The basic design, in eclectic style, was conceived simultaneously with one for the

in Montevideo,

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

. The Palacio Barolo was designed in accordance with the cosmology of Dante's ''

Divine Comedy The ''Divine Comedy'' ( it, Divina Commedia ) is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun 1308 and completed in around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature ...

'', motivated by the architect's admiration for Alighieri. There are 22 floors, divided into three "sections". The basement and ground floor represent hell, floors 1-14 are purgatory, and 15-22 represent heaven. The building is tall, one meter for each ''canto'' of the ''Divine Comedy''. The lighthouse at the top of the building can be seen all the way in Montevideo, Uruguay. The owner planned to use only 3 floors, and to rent the rest. When completed in 1923 it was the tallest building, not only in the city, but also in the whole of

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

. It remained the city's tallest building until 1935 when, on completion, the

acquired this distinction. Today it houses mainly lawyers' offices, a Spanish-language school, and a store that sells

Tango Tango is a partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. The tango was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries as the result of a combina ...

clothing.

Technical details

The steel-structured skyscraper measures 100 meters and has 22 floors; each floor has a unique design and ornamentation. Staying with the Divine Comedy (in addition to the meter for each canto), the lighted beacon at the top of the building represents the nine choirs of angels. The structure is topped by a small spire with an ornament depicting the Southern Cross constellation. The building is listed in the Emporis database. The building's foundations conform to the

golden ratio In mathematics, two quantities are in the golden ratio if their ratio is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities. Expressed algebraically, for quantities a and b with a > b > 0, where the Greek letter phi ( ...

. The skyscraper was constructed to house Dante's ashes; Barolo believed "that Europe had begun drifting toward collapse" and wanted to house them as far away as possible from the Continent. The lobby features a central hall adorned with inscriptions in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

verse and monster statues. It radiates out from a central dome into nine vaulted archways; these represent the nine circles of hell as described the Inferno. The first three floors have geometric figures representing the alchemical symbols for fire, the colors of the

Italian flag The national flag of Italy ( it, Bandiera d'Italia, ), often referred to in Italian as ''il Tricolore'' ( en, the Tricolour, ) is a tricolour (flag), tricolour featuring three equally sized vertical Pale (heraldry), pales of green, white and red, ...

, and various Masonic symbols on the walls and floors. The lobby also has operational antiquated elevators. The lighthouse on the top of the building along with the Palacio Salvo in Montevideo, Uruguay, were designed to serve as a welcome to visitors arriving from the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

to the Rio de la Plata estuary, similar to the

Pillars of Hercules The Pillars of Hercules ( la, Columnae Herculis, grc, Ἡράκλειαι Στῆλαι, , ar, أعمدة هرقل, Aʿmidat Hiraql, es, Columnas de Hércules) was the phrase that was applied in Antiquity to the promontories that flank t ...

. The ornamental spire aligns with the actual Southern Cross constellation on July 9,

Argentine Independence Day What today is commonly referred as the Independence of Argentina was declaration of independence, declared on July 9, 1816, by the Congress of Tucumán, Congress of San Miguel de Tucumán, Tucumán. In reality, the congressmen who were assem ...

Gallery

File:Desde el cenit.jpg, File:Buenos Aires - Palacio Barolo - Hall principal.jpg, File:Pasaje Barolo negocio.jpg, File:Buenos Aires - Avenida de Mayo - Palacio Barolo - Interior.jpg, File:Vista interior del Palacio desde el 4to piso.jpg, File:Buenos_Aires-Av._de_Mayo-Palacio_Barolo-1.jpg, File:Palacio Barolo (desde calle Yrigoyen).JPG,

Historical photos

File:Palacio Barolo (postal).jpg, File:Barolo, La Inmobiliaria y Congreso Nacional.jpg, File:Graf Zeppelin Palacio Barolo 30 de junio de 1934.jpg, The Graf Zeppelin flying over the building in 1934. File:Graf Zeppelin Avenida de Mayo Buenos aires.jpg, The Graf Zeppelin flying over the building in 1934.

References

* Mimi Bohm, Buenos Aires, Art Nouveau, Ediciones Xavier Verstraeten, Buenos Aires, 2005. * Palacio Barolo brochure from a guided tour.

External links

*
Catalogue of Monuments

Photo essay of the palace
(in Spanish) {{Authority control National Historic Monuments of Argentina Office buildings completed in 1923 Skyscraper office buildings in Argentina Tourist attractions in Buenos Aires Works based on the Divine Comedy Art Nouveau architecture in Buenos Aires Art Nouveau commercial buildings