El Ateneo Grand Splendid is a bookshop in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

. In 2008, ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' placed it as the second most beautiful bookshop in the world. In 2019, it was named the "world's most beautiful bookstore" by the '' National Geographic''.

Overview

Buenos Aires - Recoleta - El Ateneo ex Grand Splendid 1

Situated on Santa Fe Avenue in Barrio Norte, the building was designed by architects Peró and Torres Armengol for impresario Max Glücksmann (1875-1946), and opened as a theatre called ''Teatro Gran Splendid'' in May 1919. The eclecticist building features ceiling frescoes painted by the Italian artist Nazareno Orlandi and caryatids sculpted by Troiano Troiani, whose work also graces the cornice along the Palacio de la Legislatura de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. The theatre had a seating capacity of 1,050, and staged a variety of performances, including appearances by the tango artists Carlos Gardel, Francisco Canaro, Roberto Firpo and Ignacio Corsini. Glücksmann started his own

radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...

station in 1924 (''Radio Splendid''), which broadcast from the building where his recording company, ''Nacional Odeón'', made some of the early recordings of the great tango singers of the day. In the late twenties the theatre was converted into a cinema, and in 1929 showed the first

sound film A sound film is a Film, motion picture with synchronization, synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, bu ...

s presented in Argentina. The ornate former theatre was leased by Grupo Ilhsa in February 2000. Ilhsa, through Tematika, owns El Ateneo and Yenny booksellers (totaling over 40 stores), as well as the El Ateneo publishing house. The building was subsequently renovated and converted into a book and music shop under the direction of architect Fernando Manzone; the cinema seating was removed and in its place book shelves were installed. Following refurbishment works, the El Ateneo Grand Splendid became the group's flagship store, and in 2007 sold over 700,000 books; over a million people walk through its doors annually. Customer seating has been installed throughout the building, including the still-intact theatre boxes, and a café has been created at the back of what was once the stage. The ceiling, the ornate carvings, the crimson stage curtains, the auditorium lighting and many architectural details remain. Despite the changes, the building still retains the feeling of the grand theatre it once was. ''

'', a prominent British periodical, named El Ateneo Grand Splendid second in its 2008 list of the world's ten best bookshops. In 2019, it was named the "world's most beautiful bookstore" by the '' National Geographic''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ateneo Bookstores of Argentina Buildings and structures in Buenos Aires Retail companies established in 2000 Theatres completed in 1919