Buenos Aires House of Culture
The Buenos Aires House of Culture is an architectural landmark in the
Overview
The outmoded headquarters of what was then
Completed in 1898, the new La Prensa offices was inaugurated in a ceremony attended by around 20,000. The Beaux-Arts exterior is notable also for its spire, which is topped by a gilt bronze monument to
The spire also contains a siren, installed in 1900 to symbolically herald news La Prensa considered singular milestones. The siren has been rung five times over the decades: on news of the assassination of
The building's interior was completed with mostly imported materials, including Spargne elevators from the
The conservative La Prensa was expropriated by the administration of Juan Perón in 1951, by which the building became property of the CGT labor union. The bronze Minerva was removed by the CGT in 1952, allegedly on fears that it could collapse (that this was a removal of a monument representing freedom of the press has not been lost on historians). The statue was reinstalled in 1956, and while press freedom restrictions otherwise worsened following Perón's overthrow, La Prensa was restored to the Paz family. The newsdaily's decline in readership helped lead to the company sale of the landmark building in 1988, however, and it became the Ministry of Culture of Buenos Aires.[2]
Known since then as the Casa de la Cultura (House of Culture), the building was declared a National Historic Monument in 1995. A passageway built to connect it to the adjacent Buenos Aires City Hall was converted into the Ana Díaz Salon, where art exhibits are hosted.[1]
Gallery
Notes
- ^ a b Casa de la Cultura: Historia y arquitectura (in Spanish) Archived July 6, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "La Prensa: historia" (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 2009-06-26. Retrieved 2009-08-27.