Buenos Aires Central Business District

Edit links
Coordinates: 34°36′14″S 58°22′14″W / 34.60389°S 58.37056°W / -34.60389; -58.37056
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Buenos Aires Central Business District
ART
)

The Buenos Aires Central Business District is the main commercial centre of

city ward. While the barrios of Puerto Madero and Retiro house important business complexes and modern high-rise architecture, the area traditionally known as Microcentro (Spanish: Microcenter) is located within San Nicolás and Monserrat, roughly coinciding with the area around the historic center of the Plaza de Mayo
. The Microcentro has a wide concentration of offices, service companies and banks, and a large circulation of pedestrians on working days. Another name given to this unofficial barrio is La City, which refers more precisely to an even smaller sector within the Microcentro, where almost all the banking headquarters of the country are concentrated.

Overview

The area was the site of the first

Buenos Aires Docklands
.

The district is the financial, corporate, and cultural hub of Buenos Aires, and of Argentina. The economy of Buenos Aires was the 13th largest among the world's cities in 2006 at US$245 billion in purchasing power parity,[1] which, based on the population of that year,[2] translates into US21,500 per capita. The Buenos Aires Human Development Index (0.925 in 1998) is likewise high by international standards.[3] The Port of Buenos Aires is one of the busiest in South America; navigable rivers by way of the Río de la Plata connect the port to northeastern Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. As a result, it serves as the distribution hub for a vast area of the south-eastern region of the South American continent. Tax collection related to the port has caused many political problems in the past.

Geography

Buenos Aires CBD lies in the

Rio de la Plata (the world's largest estuary
).

The region was formerly crossed by different creeks and lagoons, some of which were refilled and other tubed. Among the most important creeks are: Maldonado, Vega, Medrano, Cildañez and White. In 1908 many creeks were channeled and rectified, as floods were damaging the city's infrastructure. Starting in 1919, most creeks were enclosed. Notably, the Maldonado was tubed in 1954, and currently runs below Juan B. Justo Avenue (north of this district).

Facing the

San Telmo, in subsequent works completed in 1865.[4]

A sudden economic and population boom led the new President of Argentina,

Argentine Congress in 1882 and financed by the prominent London-based Barings Bank (the chief underwriter of Argentine bonds and investment, at the time), the project required the reclaiming of over 200 hectares (500 acres) of underwater land and was accompanied by the widening of the promenade into what became Leandro Alem Avenue.[5]

Architecture

Diagonal Norte
thoroughfare, featuring several styles of architecture.

Diagonal Norte
Avenue. Some of the most prominent contributors to the district's architecture from the era included
Francisco Gianotti. Later significant additions include those by Alejandro Christophersen, Alejandro Bustillo (most notably the National Bank), Andrés Kalnay, Eduardo Le Monnier, and Francisco Salamone
.

The

Galicia Tower, the Repsol-YPF Tower, the Banco Macro Tower, and the BBVA Tower
.

Districts

San Nicolás

A representative image of pedestrians at the Microcentro

San Nicolás is one of the districts that shares most of the city and national government structure with neighboring

9 de Julio Avenue
is called Microcentro ("Micro-centre").

The growing importance of the area as a financial center was highlighted by the 1854 establishment of the

Leandro Alem Avenue
).

The construction of

shopping arcade.[7]

The district is home to the

BBVA, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, IBM, Microsoft, Santander Bank, and Techint.[6]

Retiro

The Avenida Leandro N. Alem in Retiro, featuring the Catalinas Norte business complex.

Retiro is one of the largest hubs of transportation services in Argentina. Local and long-distance rail service heading to the north originate from

Buenos Aires Metro
system and numerous local public bus services serve Retiro, and this area is always teeming with commuters and traffic on weekdays.

The most important avenue linking Retiro and the CBD to commuters living in residential areas to the north is

9 de Julio Avenues
.

The high-rise business district of

Anglo-Argentine community for the 1910 centennial celebrations, is located.[8]

Other significant landmarks opposite the Plaza are the

International style.[8]

Montserrat

Aerial view of the city's historical centre, in the borough of Monserrat.

Montserrat is located south of San Nicolás. The section of the Montserrat ward within the business district includes some of the most important buildings in

Buenos Aires Cabildo
, the colonial town hall.

San Telmo district to the south.[9]

The district's led central location and its presence therein of much of Argentina's governmental structure led to monumental construction over the 1910s, notable among which are the

Nueve de Julio Avenue
around 1950.

The area became a largely bohemian quarter popular with

San Telmo, helped lead to renewed tourist interest in Montserrat since around 1990.[9]

Puerto Madero

High-rise buildings in Puerto Madero

Puerto Madero occupies a significant portion of the

docklands
and, as the newest of Buenos Aires's 48 boroughs, features the latest architectural trends in Argentina, as well as many tall apartment buildings and office blocks.

Originally developed by local businessman

lofts, restaurants, private universities and luxurious hotels. State-of-the-art multiplex cinemas, theatres, cultural centres, luxurious hotels and office and corporate buildings are located mostly in the eastern side of the district.[10]

Puerto Madero has been redeveloped with international flair, drawing interest from renown architects such as Santiago Calatrava, Norman Foster, César Pelli and Philippe Starck, among others. Today one of the trendiest boroughs in Buenos Aires, it has become the preferred address for growing numbers of young professionals and retirees, alike. Increasing property prices have also generated interest in the area as a destination for foreign buyers, particularly those in the market for premium investment properties.

The neighborhood's road network has been entirely rebuilt, especially in the east side. The layout of the east side consists currently of three wide boulevards running east–west crossed by the east side's main street, Juana Manso Avenue. The layout is completed with some other avenues and minor streets, running both east–west and north–south, and by several pedestrianised streets. All the streets of Puerto Madero are named after women. The Puente de la Mujer (Women's Bridge), designed in 2001 by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, is the newest link between the east and west docks of Puerto Madero.[10]

Puerto Madero represents the largest wide-scale urban project in the city of Buenos Aires, currently. Having undergone an impressive revival in merely a decade, it is one of the most successful recent waterfront renewal projects in the world.[11]

Numerous new residential high-rises of up to 50 stories have been built facing on the eastern half of Puerto Madero since 2000. These include

Faena Hotel+Universe (one of a number of refurbished former Molinos Río de la Plata silos), and the Fortabat Art Collection
museum building.

References
Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Microcentro.
  1. ^ City Mayors
  2. ^ "INDEC" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-03-25. Retrieved 2009-07-17.
  3. ^ 'Informe Argentino Sobre Desarrollo Humano' Archived October 9, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ Buenos Aires.gov: Paseo de Julio Archived 2011-05-31 at the Wayback Machine (in Spanish)
  5. ^ Puerto Madero: history Archived 2009-09-23 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ a b Barriada: San Nicolás Archived 2012-12-07 at the Wayback Machine (in Spanish)
  7. ^ Buenos Aires Neighborhoods - Microcentro
  8. ^ a b Barriada: Retiro Archived 2012-12-09 at the Wayback Machine (in Spanish)
  9. ^ a b Barriada: Montserrat Archived 2011-01-03 at the Wayback Machine (in Spanish)
  10. ^ a b Barriada: Puero Madero Archived 2011-01-03 at the Wayback Machine (in Spanish)
  11. ^ Ann Breen and Dick Rigby, The New Waterfront: A Worldwide Urban Success Story – McGraw-Hill Professional
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Buenos_Aires_Central_Business_District&oldid=1216623703"