The Palais de Glace is a rumeno style Belle Époque building in the Recoleta neighbourhood of

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 ...

. Located at 1430 Posadas street, it was modelled on the Palais des Glaces in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

. The building was designed by J. L. Ruiz Basadre and inaugurated in 1911 as an ice skating rink and social club. The circular ice rink occupied a central room around which were arranged theatre-style boxes and rooms for social gatherings. The refrigeration plant was housed in the basement and on the first floor was a balcony, a cafe and organ. The building has a domed roof with a large central skylight which provided natural light for the skating rink below. Palais de Glace, Buenos Aires

As ice skating became less fashionable in the following decade, and

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 ...

gained increasing social acceptance, the Palais de Glace was converted into an elegant dance hall and played an important role in the promotion of this new dance phenomenon, initially opposed by the bourgeois elite. Many well-known tango orchestras and dancers appeared here over the years but towards the end of the 1920s the venue went into decline and in 1931 the building was taken over by the local authority and given to the Ministry of Education and Justice. From now on the building was used to house the National Office of Fine Arts and the annual ' (National Exhibition of Fine Arts) was held there from 1932 until 1954. Starting in 1931 the interior of the building was remodelled by the architect and artist Alejandro Bustillo, to provide exhibition rooms whilst respecting the original design, and in 1934 three large murals were painted on the interior walls. In 1935 the exterior of the building was radically altered. In 1938 an exhibition of television equipment was staged here and between 1954 and 1960 the building was used as a studio annex by the television station Canal Siete. During this period the Salón Nacional was held at various venues including the National Museum of Fine Arts and the Argentine National Congress. Since 1960 the Palais de Glace has hosted the ' together with a range of other art exhibitions and musical events. In 2004 the building was declared a National Historic Monument. In 2012 it was awarded by the Konex Foundation from Argentina for it contribution to the Visual Arts of Argentina.

External links

National Commission for Museums and Historical Monuments and PlacesOfficial website
Buildings and structures in Buenos Aires Tango in Argentina Argentine culture National Historic Monuments of Argentina Tourist attractions in Buenos Aires Buildings and structures completed in 1910 Belle Époque {{BuenosAires-struct-stub