![Avenida Córdoba Mapa](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Avenida_C%C3%B3rdoba_Mapa.jpg)
Córdoba Avenue is one of the principal thoroughfares in
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
,
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
.
History
Mayor
Torcuato de Alvear
Torcuato de Alvear y Saenz de la Quintanilla ( Montevideo, 1822 – Buenos Aires, 1890) was a 19th-century Argentine conservative politician. He was the son of soldier and statesman Carlos María de Alvear and father of Marcelo Torcuato de Alvea ...
, inspired by the urban redevelopment works in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
at the hand of
Baron Haussmann, drew up master plans for major boulevards, running east to west, every six blocks. During the 1880s, Córdoba Avenue was included in the plan and widened. The
Buenos Aires Metro authority at the time, operated by the Spanish-Argentine concern ''CHADOPyF'', built
Line
Line most often refers to:
* Line (geometry), object with zero thickness and curvature that stretches to infinity
* Telephone line, a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system
Line, lines, The Line, or LINE may also refer to:
Arts ...
![Line-D](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Line-D.png)
largely under Córdoba Avenue during the 1930s. Following the popularization of the automobile in Argentina during the 1960s, a 1967 ordinance made the avenue a one-way thoroughfare, east to west (making Córdoba Avenue one of the major routes used by the city's evening commuters).
Overview
The avenue's outset at
Eduardo Madero
Eduardo Madero (1823 — 1894) was an Argentine merchant, banker and developer.
Life and times
Eduardo Madero was born in Buenos Aires, in 1823, to a family of farmers. A nephew of publisher Florencio Varela, his uncle's enmity with the Governor ...
Avenue is the continuation of Cecilia Grierson Street in
Puerto Madero
Puerto Madero, also known within the urban planning
Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land ...
. Past this point, Córdoba Av. enters downtown Buenos Aires and passes along the northern end of the
financial district.
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
's Latin American headquarters, opened in 2000, and the 42-story Alas building are located on this corner; the Alas building, built in the early 1950s by the administration of
Juan Perón
Juan Domingo Perón (, , ; 8 October 1895 – 1 July 1974) was an Argentine Army general and politician. After serving in several government positions, including Minister of Labour and Vice President of a military dictatorship, he was elected P ...
for the
Argentine Air Force, was the tallest in Argentina until 1995. Past
Leandro Alem Avenue
Avenida Leandro N. Alem is one of the principal thoroughfares in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and a commercial nerve center of the city's San Nicolás and Retiro districts. It joins Avenida del Libertador and Avenida Paseo Colón, its northern and ...
(the city's original shoreline), the avenue climbs around 15 m (50 ft) in a block-long segment known as "''el bajo''" - an incline where the riverfront once was. The Lancaster Hotel, located at the top of the incline, is where writer
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquir ...
stayed in Buenos Aires while writing his celebrated mystery, ''
The Honorary Consul.''
[Wilson, Jason. Cultural Guide to the City of Buenos Aires. Oxford, England: Signal Books, 1999.]
![Galerías PacíficoP1010099](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Galer%C3%ADas_Pac%C3%ADficoP1010099.jpg)
The avenue crosses pedestrianized
Florida Street
Florida Street ( es, Calle Florida) is a popular shopping street in Downtown Buenos Aires, Argentina. A pedestrian street since 1971, some stretches have been pedestrianized since 1913.
The pedestrian section as such starts at the intersection ...
a few blocks on. The southeast corner of this intersection is known for the
Galerías Pacífico
Galerías Pacífico is a shopping centre in Buenos Aires, Argentina, located at the intersection of Florida Street and Córdoba Avenue.
Overview
The Beaux Arts building was designed by the architects Emilio Agrelo and Roland Le Vacher in 1889 to ...
shopping arcade, housed in ornate structure occupying a city block and built in 1889 as the Buenos Aires affiliate of Paris' renowned
Bon Marché. The eclectic
Beaux-Arts structure is complemented by the Naval Officers' Association building, on the intersection's northeast corner; adjacent to the latter building is
Harrods Buenos Aires, currently undergoing renovations. Writer
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known bo ...
frequented the Café St. James nearby (at Córdoba and Maipú), where he held his lectures on
English literature
English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ...
during the 1950s and 1960s. One block west is the eclecticist Bencich Building, known for its tapered red cupola. Buenos Aires'
Nueve de Julio Avenue
July 9 Avenue (Spanish: ''Avenida 9 de Julio'') is a major thoroughfare in the city centre of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Its name honors Argentina's Independence Day, July 9, 1816.
The avenue runs around to the west of the Río de la Plata water ...
(one of the world's widest) was extended northwards past Córdoba Avenue in the 1950s, and the intersection of the two avenues was graced by the placement of two fountains originally located at the
Plaza de Mayo. Italian automaker
FIAT
Fiat Automobiles S.p.A. (, , ; originally FIAT, it, Fabbrica Italiana Automobili di Torino, lit=Italian Automobiles Factory of Turin) is an Italian automobile manufacturer, formerly part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and since 2021 a subsidiary ...
opened the Mirafiori Tower, its Argentine headquarters, at this intersection in 1964.
[
Its intersection with Libertad Street (one block past Nueve de Julio) is distinguished by Plaza Lavalle, the Cervantes Theatre and the Libertad Street Temple, the most important ]synagogue
A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of worshi ...
in Buenos Aires (home to the largest Jewish community in Latin America). Further west, the avenue passes by the Palacio de Aguas Corrientes
The Palace of Running Waters ( es, Palacio de Aguas Corrientes) is an architecturally significant water pumping station in Buenos Aires, Argentina and the former headquarters of Obras Sanitarias de la Nación. It is currently administered by Agua y ...
, an ornate water pumping station completed in 1894; the effect of rainfall on the building's porcelain
Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises mainl ...
tile exterior is an attraction to many, in itself. The Neo-classical Sáenz Peña Teachers' School is across the avenue. Córdoba Avenue is home to a concentration of University of Buenos Aires
The University of Buenos Aires ( es, Universidad de Buenos Aires, UBA) is a public university, public research university in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Established in 1821, it is the premier institution of higher learning in the country and one o ...
schools, as well. The Faculty of Medicine
A medical school is a tertiary educational institution, or part of such an institution, that teaches medicine, and awards a professional degree for physicians. Such medical degrees include the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS, M ...
and its Hospital de Clínicas are across the avenue from the Faculty of Economics
A faculty is a division within a university or college comprising one subject area or a group of related subject areas, possibly also delimited by level (e.g. undergraduate). In American usage such divisions are generally referred to as colleges ...
, and all are a block east of the Neo-gothic National Music Conservatory
The National Music Conservatory (NMC) is a music school in Amman, Jordan
Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa ...
. Entering the historic Jewish district of Buenos Aires, the avenue's intersection with Pasteur Street lies one block north of the Jewish Argentine Mutual Association, whose original building was destroyed in an as-yet-unsolved 1994 terrorist attack (the worst ever in Argentine history).[
The 8 km (5 mi) avenue demarcates a number of Buenos Aires' boroughs. At its outset, it separates Retiro to the north from San Nicolás and, further west, from ]Balvanera
Balvanera is a barrio or neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Origin of name and alternative names
The official name, Balvanera, is the name of the ''parroquia'' (parish) centered around the church of ''Nuestra Señora de Balvanera'', erected ...
. It then separates Balvanera from Recoleta, to the north and, further west, Palermo
Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...
from Almagro
Almagro () may refer to:
People
*Diego de Almagro (1475–1538), Spanish explorer
*Diego Almagro II (1520–1542), assassin of Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro
*Luis Almagro (born 1963), Uruguayan lawyer, diplomat and politician
*Nicolás ...
and Villa Crespo
Villa Crespo is a middle class neighborhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina, located in the geographical center of the city. It had a population of 83,646 people in 2001, and thus currently a population density of 23,235 inhabitants/km2. Villa Crespo c ...
(both to Palermo's south). Entering Villa Crespo, the avenue passes under Reconquista Bridge, an overpass opened in 1969 to facilitate traffic along Juan B. Justo Avenue
Avenida Juan B. Justo is an avenue that runs through Palermo and Recoleta neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and goes from southwest to northeast, parallel Pueyrredón avenue. It starts at Santa Fe avenue, and ends at Avenida General Paz ...
. Córdoba Avenue's Villa Crespo section is known for its many apparel and footwear stores. The avenue ends as such at Federico Lacroze Avenue, though geographically it continues as Giribone Street for another eight blocks, extending well into the Chacarita borough.
File:Microsoft argentina.jpg, Microsoft and Alas buildings
File:Buenos Aires - Florida y Córdoba.jpg, Naval Officers' Association
File:Edificio Bencich (desde Córdoba).JPG, Bencich Building
File:Antigua fuente de la Plaza de Mayo.jpg, Fountain and the former FIAT building
File:Aguas Corrientes-2011-TM.jpg, Palacio de Aguas Corrientes
The Palace of Running Waters ( es, Palacio de Aguas Corrientes) is an architecturally significant water pumping station in Buenos Aires, Argentina and the former headquarters of Obras Sanitarias de la Nación. It is currently administered by Agua y ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cordoba Avenue
Balvanera
Streets in Buenos Aires