Buenos Aires City Hall

Coordinates: 34°36′30″S 58°22′19″W / 34.60833°S 58.37194°W / -34.60833; -58.37194
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Buenos Aires City Hall
Palacio Municipal de Buenos Aires
Government of the City of Buenos Aires
Height48.2 m (clock)[1]
Design and construction
Architect(s)Juan Antonio Buschiazzo
Ing. Juan M. Cagnoni
Architecture firmCastello y Scala

Buenos Aires City Hall (

Office of the Chief of Government of Buenos Aires, the capital city of Argentina. From its construction in 1914 to the reformation of the city's constitution in 1996, the building was the seat of the City Municipality. It faces the Plaza de Mayo, across from the Casa Rosada presidential palace, in the barrio of Monserrat
.

Since 2015, the Office of the Chief of Government has been located at a new building in the barrio of Parque Patricios. The City Hall still houses various government offices of the city government.[2]

Building

The 1880 Federalization of Buenos Aires was followed by a boom in foreign trade and European immigration, and in 1890, Mayor Francisco P. Bollini commissioned the construction of a new city hall. The building would replace what had been the city government's offices since 1860 - the second floor of police headquarters; the city had grown dramatically since then, and the space had become inadequate.

Bollini's announced project had been immediately preceded by the

British investment, led to plans of a relatively modest scale. Among the cost-saving measures was the city's enlistment of the Assistant Minister of Public Works, Juan Cagnoni, as chief architect, as well as the decision to build on the site of the outmoded police headquarters. Decorative tilework and chandeliers from the adjacent Zuberbühler house, which had recently been expropriated to make way for the Avenida de Mayo
, were likewise salvaged for use in the upcoming city hall (where they remain to the present day).

The cornerstone laying ceremony was held on New Year's Eve 1890, for which the Mayor contributed a

Second Empire style with which Cagnoni designed the first part, the engineering firm of Bonneu Ibero, Parodi & Figini completed the annex in 1914. A connection to the adjacent House of Culture was opened following the latter's acquisition by the city in 1988.[3]

Government

View of the Building

The 1880 Federalization of Buenos Aires, enacted in a bid to end the internecine warfare between those who favored a united Argentina with a strong central government (

Mayor of Buenos Aires
(though with a locally elected city council).

This remained the city's governing structure in 1993, when former President

Peronist Senator, Antonio Cafiero, succeeded in limiting the city's autonomy by advancing National Law 24.588, which reserved control of the 25,000-strong Policía Federal (the federally administered city police), the Port of Buenos Aires and other faculties to the national government.[4]

The controversial bill, signed in 1996 by President Menem, remained a sticking point between successive Presidents (most of whom have been

Peronist) and Buenos Aires Mayors (none of whom have been). A 2005 agreement on principles between Mayor Aníbal Ibarra and President Néstor Kirchner was followed by the modification of the especially contentious article 7, which denied the city its own, local police force, in 2007 - though the "Cafiero Law" otherwise remains in force. Efforts since 2007 by Mayor Mauricio Macri to declare it unconstitutional have thus far failed, and though the Mayor inaugurated a Metropolitan Police, issues of revenue sharing for its financing remain pending.[5]

References
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Palacio Municipal de Buenos Aires.
  1. ^ a b Borracci, María Lorena; Romano, Samanta Juliana (2013). "La Casa Municipal: Una experiencia etnográfica en la sede del Gobierno de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires" (PDF). VII Jornadas Santiago Wallace de Investigación en Antropología Social, Sección de Antropología Social. Buenos Aires: University of Buenos Aires Faculty of Philosophy and Letters. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
  2. ^ "Mauricio Macri inauguró la sede de la Jefatura de gobierno porteño, con Horacio Rodríguez Larreta y Gabriela Michetti". La Nación (in Spanish). 1 April 2015. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
  3. ^ Palacio Municipal de Buenos Aires (in Spanish) Archived June 2, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ "Infobae: Qué dice la Ley Cafiero" (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 28 March 2012. Retrieved 25 August 2009.
  5. ^ Parlamentario: Piden que declaren inconstitucional la ley Cafiero (in Spanish)
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