architectural

This is so wonderful.  It's the Palacio de las Aguas Corrientes, a truly romantic name that used to house ... a water pumping and purification station (cholera was really bad in the 1860s). The engineering work was English; the architect was Norwegian (Olaf Boye) and the engineering design was by the Swiss civil engineer Carlos Nyströmer.  The outside boasts 300,000 glazed terracotta tiles made in ... Leeds.  It must have been an amazing building in the city when it was built: 1887.  Here are some early postcards and photos that show this...   Anyway, I've been obsessed with seeing it for a while ...

But first, I had to walk there, past some other small architectural gems;

and attempts to brighten the ugliness of the main (civic) hospital.

and then, the magnificent Palacio itself.  I found out yesterday that its museum has been closed for restoration since ... last Monday, but since it still is full of offices where people do things like going and paying their water bills, I was hoping at least to step inside.  No.  It was closed for Sanitation Workers Day (and there were lots of cross people who couldn't get to pay their bills, too).  But maybe the outside is the main thing?  There are many, many more photos where these came from: I've restrained myself ...

And then I carried on walking.  And yes, I was grateful to AI.  I had a list of buildings I wanted to see, and I asked it to construct a walking route that joined them all together, and that was a godsend.

So next, a fine piece of Art Nouveau architecture, whose first plans were drawn up in 1905: the Confitería del Molino has been empty since 1997, but it's been being restored since 2019 ...

The 22 floor Palacio Barolo is quite extraordinary: built by a cotton baron in the early 1920s, with one floor for each of Dante's cantos; some monster on the ground floor (which is Hell, of course), and a lighthouse on top.  He wanted to move Dante's ashes here, because he thought Europe was disintegrating and they wouldn't be safe in Italy.

A necessary stop for some excellent coffee in the Gran Cafe Tortoni - the oldest cafe in BA, which has been here since 1858 and is very - well, the guidebooks all say French, and yes, but it seemed much more like an old Italian cafe to me: a long ago haunt of writers, artists etc, in any case,

The former Banco de Boston, now offices, built in 1924.

Next, the Galerias Pacifico - with a rich and complex history: the original idea, in the 1880s, was to create an Argentinian version of Au Bon Marché (the Paris department store), with the architectural influence of the Galeria Vittorio Emanuale in Milan playing a part, too.  But - despite adding a hotel, and some very early escalators, and indoor central heating, it was ... rather large for a department store at the time, and, I suspect, wildly unprofitable.  The Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes moved here in the 1890s; the department store didn't make it past 1905; in 1908 it was taken over by a railroad company; then in the late 40s another stab at a department store was made; then offices again; then decay ... but it was resuscitated in the 1990s, and now holds a whole lot of upmarket stores.

Eat your heart out, Rick Caruso - the Americana and The Grove will never have this real department store heritage - with frescos (from the late 1940s).

Not all department store ventures succeed, however ... this was the only overseas branch of Harrods: it opened in 1914, and was a - I can't better the city's description on its own website - "Edificio de estilo Eduardiano -fue popular en el Imperio Británico durante la era eduardiana de 1901 a 1910 y se caracteriza por su escasa ornamentación."  It closed in 1998, and has been empty since then, and is a rather sad sight.

and finally, and very autumnally, back at the street corner before my hotel.  I should say that all this walking wouldn't be nearly so doable if it was high summer - with temperatures ranging between the low 40s (I wore a hat this morning) and the mid 60s, it's really pleasant weather for city exploration.