Buenos Aires Central Post Office
Encyclopedia
San Nicolás, Buenos Aires
San Nicolás is one of the neighbourhoods of the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, sharing most of the city and national government structure with neighboring Montserrat and home to much of Buenos Aires' financial sector...
district of Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
.
Overview
The need for a new central post office in Buenos Aires was first raised in 1888 by the Director of the Argentine Postal Service at the time Dr. Ramón J. CárcanoRamón J. Cárcano
Ramón José Cárcano was an Argentine lawyer, historian and politician who served as Governor of Córdoba from 1913 to 1916, and from 1925 to 1928.-Life and times:...
. Later that year a Congressional bill providing for its construction was signed by President Miguel Juárez Celman. The Ministry of Public Works commissioned French architect
French architecture
The history of French architecture runs in parallel with its neighbouring countries in Europe, with France being home to both some of the earliest pioneers in many architectural styles, and also containing some of the finest architectural creations of the continent.-Roman:The architecture of...
Norbert Maillart, who in 1889 submitted a design inspired by the recently-inaugurated James Farley Post Office
James Farley Post Office
The James A. Farley Post Office Building is the main post office building in New York City. Its ZIP code designation is 10001. Built in 1912, the building is famous for bearing the inscription: Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of...
, in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
.
Designating a 12,500 m² (134,000 ft²) city block on the corner of Leandro Alem
Leandro Alem Avenue
Avenida Leandro N. Alem is one of the principal thoroughfares in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and a commercial nerve center of the city's San Nicolás and Retiro districs.-Overview:...
and Corrientes Avenue
Corrientes Avenue
Avenida Corrientes is one of the principal thoroughfares of the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires. The street is intimately tied to the tango and the porteño sense of identity...
s for its construction, the Public Works Ministry chose the site as a means to beautify a land reclamation
Land reclamation
Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, is the process to create new land from sea or riverbeds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamation ground or landfill.- Habitation :...
site where the shores of the Río de la Plata
Río de la Plata
The Río de la Plata —sometimes rendered River Plate in British English and the Commonwealth, and occasionally rendered [La] Plata River in other English-speaking countries—is the river and estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River on the border between Argentina and...
had reached just a decade earlier. The sudden onset of the Panic of 1890
Panic of 1890
The Panic of 1890 was an acute depression, although less serious than other panics of the era. It was precipitated by the near insolvency of Barings Bank in London. Barings, led by Edward Baring, 1st Baron Revelstoke, faced bankruptcy in November 1890 due mainly to excessive risk-taking on poor...
and the subsequent crisis
Revolution of the Park
The Revolution of the Park was an uprising against the national government of Argentina that took place on 26 July 1890 and started with the takeover of the Buenos Aires Artillery Park. It was led by members of the Civic Union against the presidency of Miguel Juárez Celman...
led to President Juárez Celman's resignation, however, as well as to the project's suspension.
The national government revived the plans only in 1905, and in 1908, Maillart returned to Buenos Aires, where his new plans for a larger post office were approved the following April. Differences later arose between Maillart and the Argentine government, and the French architect abandoned the project in 1911. Construction, which had just started, was then left to the supervision of Maillart's chief assistant, Jacques Spolsky. Spolsky reengineered the design, which featured masonry
Masonry
Masonry is the building of structures from individual units laid in and bound together by mortar; the term masonry can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are brick, stone, marble, granite, travertine, limestone; concrete block, glass block, stucco, and...
supports, to consist of a steel-reinforced concrete structure, for which 2,882 steel pillars were placed onto the bedrock, 10 m (33 ft) deep.
Limitations on the city's public works budgets resulting from the onset of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
forced another major design alteration, in 1916. The planned construction of an elevated causeway on Leandro Alem Avenue was cancelled, and a mezzanine
Mezzanine (architecture)
In architecture, a mezzanine or entresol is an intermediate floor between main floors of a building, and therefore typically not counted among the overall floors of a building. Often, a mezzanine is low-ceilinged and projects in the form of a balcony. The term is also used for the lowest balcony in...
was quickly added to the plans to compensate for an entrance which would now be one floor below the original's. Spolsky achieved this without substantial changes to the building's exterior, though the number of delays led to considerable cost overruns on the project, and its budget was exhausted in 1923. President Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear
Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear
Máximo Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear Pacheco , better known as Marcelo T. de Alvear was an Argentine politician and President of Argentina from October 12, 1922 to October 12, 1928.-Biography:...
, however, obtained Congressional support for a new appropriation, and on September 28, 1928 (two weeks before Alvear's departure), the new Secretaría de Comunicaciones was inaugurated.
The building's eclectic design, drawing prominently from French Second Empire architecture, was typical of the public buildings and upscale real estate built in Buenos Aires and other Argentine cities early in the 20th Century; indeed, despite his differences, Maillart went on to design the Buenos Aires National College
Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires
Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires is a public high school in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In the tradition of the European gymnasium it provides a free education that includes classical languages such as Latin and Greek. The school is one of the most prestigious in Argentina...
and the Argentine Supreme Court, and Spolsky designed post offices for Rosario
Rosario
Rosario is the largest city in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina. It is located northwest of Buenos Aires, on the western shore of the Paraná River and has 1,159,004 residents as of the ....
and San Miguel de Tucumán in a similar style while at work on this structure. The largest public building completed in Argentina up to that point, the building measured nine stories and 60 m (197 ft) in height and included over 88,000 m² (950,000 ft²) of indoor space. The central hall was decorated with marble throughout, features stained glass windows, numerous bronze sculptures and mail drop boxes, and a 4-story-high domed ceiling.
The grandiose setting led President Juan Perón
Juan Perón
Juan Domingo Perón was an Argentine military officer, and politician. Perón was three times elected as President of Argentina though he only managed to serve one full term, after serving in several government positions, including the Secretary of Labor and the Vice Presidency...
to move his offices in the building during the early years of his 1946-55 tenure, and the First Lady, Eva Perón
Eva Perón
María Eva Duarte de Perón was the second wife of President Juan Perón and served as the First Lady of Argentina from 1946 until her death in 1952. She is often referred to as simply Eva Perón, or by the affectionate Spanish language diminutive Evita.She was born in the village of Los Toldos in...
, designated a wing as the first headquarters of the charitable Eva Perón Foundation
Eva Perón Foundation
The Eva Perón Foundation was a charitable foundation begun by Eva Perón, a prominent Argentine political leader, when she was the First Lady and Spiritual Leader of the Nation of Argentina. It operated from 1948 to 1955...
. During the subsequent automobile boom in Argentina, the plaza facing the post office was made into a parking lot - though opposition to the 1979 sale of the parking lot for the construction of a local Bank of Tokyo headquarters proved insurmountable, and the plans were cancelled. The Minister of Urban Development and, later, Mayor, Guillermo del Cioppo, ordered the construction of an underground parking structure, instead, and the lot above was converted into a park in 1983.
The building was designated a National Historic Monument in 1997. Most of its postal activities had been transferred to a newer structure during the Perón administration, and it handled only international mail in later years; in 2005, its last remaining postal bureau was closed. President Néstor Kirchner
Néstor Kirchner
Néstor Carlos Kirchner was an Argentine politician who served as the 54th President of Argentina from 25 May 2003 until 10 December 2007. Previously, he was Governor of Santa Cruz Province since 10 December 1991. He briefly served as Secretary General of the Union of South American Nations ...
proposed the landmark's conversion into a cultural center that June, and two years later, plans were approved for the construction of two concert halls and an exhibition gallery for the creation of the Bicentennial Cultural Center. The center's winning design was provided by a team of architects led by siblings Enrique, Federico and Nicolás Bares, and it's scheduled for its inaugural on the bicentennial of the May Revolution
May Revolution
The May Revolution was a week-long series of events that took place from May 18 to 25, 1810, in Buenos Aires, capital of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, a Spanish colony that included roughly the territories of present-day Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay...
, May 25, 2010.