Lezama Park
Encyclopedia
San Telmo
San Telmo is the oldest barrio of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is a well-preserved area of the Argentine metropolis and is characterized by its colonial buildings. Cafes, tango parlors and antique shops line the cobblestone streets, which are often filled with artists and dancers.San Telmo's...
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...
, Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
.
Overview
Historians believe the park's eastern barranca to have been the site of Spanish ConquistadorConquistador
Conquistadors were Spanish soldiers, explorers, and adventurers who brought much of the Americas under the control of Spain in the 15th to 16th centuries, following Europe's discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus in 1492...
Pedro de Mendoza
Pedro de Mendoza
Pedro de Mendoza y Luján was a Spanish conquistador, soldier and explorer, and the first adelantado of the Río de la Plata.- Setting sail :...
's landing on what became the first, failed attempt to establish Buenos Aires in 1536. Well to the south of the colonial hamlet, the land was first purchased by Manuel Gallego y Valcárcel around 1790. The lot was later purchased by a succession of English Argentines, the last of whom, Charles Ridgley Horne, improved and expanded the property, raising a baroque mansion on the land's western edge, Defensa Street. Allied to the repressive paramount Governor of Buenos Aires, Juan Manuel de Rosas
Juan Manuel de Rosas
Juan Manuel de Rosas , was an argentine militar and politician, who was elected governor of the province of Buenos Aires in 1829 to 1835, and then of the Argentine Confederation from 1835 until 1852...
, Ridgley Horne was forced into exile after the strongman's 1852 overthrow
Battle of Caseros
The Battle of Caseros was fought near the town of Caseros, more precisely between the present-day train stations of Caseros and Palomar in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, on 3 February 1852, between the Army of Buenos Aires commanded by Juan Manuel de Rosas...
, however, and the land was sold to José Gregorio Lezama, who added adjoining lots to the north and gave the green space its current dimensions.
Lezama commissioned Belgian landscape designer Charles Veerecke to beautify the grounds, planting rows of tipa
Tipuana tipu
Tipuana tipu, known as Rosewood, is a South American tree of the genus Tipuana. Tipu trees can reach 100 feet in height and 60 feet wide. They are known for being shade trees. Tipu leaves vary in size from 1/2 inch to 3 inches or more and they grow in clusters. The flowers are bright yellow in...
and jacaranda
Jacaranda
Jacaranda is a genus of 49 species of flowering plants in the family Bignoniaceae, native to tropical and subtropical regions of South America , Central America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. It is also found in Asia, especially in Nepal...
trees decades before the three species became nearly emblematic of the city at large. Following his 1894 passing, Lezama's widow sold the 8 hectare (20 acre) estate to the city for a token sum, on condition that the grounds become a park in her late husband's name. The couple's Defensa Street mansion became the Argentine National Museum of History
Argentine National Museum of History
The Argentine National Historical Museum is located in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and is a museum dedicated to the history of Argentina, exhibiting objects relating to the May Revolution and the Argentine War of Independence.-History:...
in 1897 and the Municipal Parks Director, the noted French Argentine
French Argentine
A French Argentine is an Argentine citizen of full or partial French ancestry. French Argentines form the third or fourth largest ancestry group after Italian Argentines, Spanish Argentines, and perhaps German Argentines...
urbanist Carlos Thays
Carlos Thays
Carlos Thays was a French-Argentine landscape architect, and a student of French landscape architect Édouard André.-Biography:...
, remodeled the park with gates, a rose garden, a gazebo
Gazebo
A gazebo is a pavilion structure, sometimes octagonal, that may be built, in parks, gardens, and spacious public areas. Gazebos are freestanding or attached to a garden wall, roofed, and open on all sides; they provide shade, shelter, ornamental features in a landscape, and a place to rest...
, a pergola
Pergola
A pergola, arbor or arbour is a garden feature forming a shaded walkway, passageway or sitting area of vertical posts or pillars that usually support cross-beams and a sturdy open lattice, often upon which woody vines are trained...
, a sculpture garden and an esplanade
Esplanade
An esplanade is a long, open, level area, usually next to a river or large body of water, where people may walk. The original meaning of esplanade was a large, open, level area outside fortress or city walls to provide clear fields of fire for the fortress' guns...
in 1904.
The park's surroundings were enhanced by the 1901 inaugural of the Russian Orthodox Church
Russian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...
of Buenos Aires and by the addition of a number of buildings in the Second Empire style, notably the one housing the Bar Británico, an English-style Pub still popular among locals. The Canale Biscuit Company factory, a leading neighborhood employer when it opened in 1910, was converted into an arts and commercial complex in 2006.
The 1930s saw the removal of the perimeter gates, as well as the addition of monuments such as the one to Pedro de Mendoza
Pedro de Mendoza
Pedro de Mendoza y Luján was a Spanish conquistador, soldier and explorer, and the first adelantado of the Río de la Plata.- Setting sail :...
. Lezama Park began to show its age in recent decades, a development dramatized by the theft of a number of the park's many decorative urns and bronzes. Mayor Mauricio Macri
Mauricio Macri
Mauricio Macri is an Argentine businessman turned politician, and Head of Government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires. Son of Francisco Macri, a businessman of Italian origin prominent in the industrial and construction sectors, he represented the City of Buenos Aires in the Lower House of...
announced works to restore the park in 2008. The plan included the reintroduction of perimeter gates modeled on the originals and the addition of a solarium
Solarium
Solarium may refer to:* Similar to a Sunroom, a room built largely of glass to afford exposure to the sun. Solariums have glass roofs , unlike sunrooms...
, among other new features. Delays in its implementation, coupled with the growing number of street vendors, continued to blight the park, however.