Bouchard Plaza is an architecturally significant office building in the San Nicolás ward of

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 ...

Overview

The site of the building, on 557 Bouchard Street, was originally occupied by the printing house of ''

La Nación ''La Nación'' () is an Argentine daily newspaper. As the country's leading conservative newspaper, ''La Nación''s main competitor is the more liberal '' Clarín''. It is regarded as a newspaper of record for Argentina. Its motto is: "''La Nac ...

''. The daily newspaper, founded by President

Bartolomé Mitre Bartolomé Mitre Martínez (26 June 1821 – 19 January 1906) was an Argentine statesman, soldier and author. He was President of Argentina from 1862 to 1868 and the first president of unified Argentina. Mitre is known as the most versatile ...

, remains among the most widely circulated in Argentina. The company contracted SEPRA Arquitectos for the design of new editorial offices in 1960, while retaining its

Plateresque Plateresque, meaning "in the manner of a silversmith" (''plata'' being silver in Spanish), was an artistic movement, especially architectural, developed in Spain and its territories, which appeared between the late Gothic and early Renaissance in ...

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 ...

headquarters. Inaugurated in 1969, the drab, two-story building (with three underground floors) was enlarged by the addition of four floors to the existing building, and ''La Nación'' relocated its headquarters to this new structure upon its completion in 1979. Flanked by leafy Roma Square to the south, the building's shipping and receiving department was shifted to the opposite, Eduardo Madero Avenue side. The publisher was joined by industrial conglomerate

Techint Techint is an Argentine conglomerate founded in Milan in 1945 by Italian industrialist Agostino Rocca and headquartered in Milan (Italy) and Buenos Aires (Argentina). As of 2019 the Techint Group is composed of six main companies in the following ...

and Banco Santander Río in a US$40 million investment for the construction of a new office building. Designed by

Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum HOK, formerly Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum and legally HOK Group, Inc., is an American design, architecture, engineering, and urban planning firm, founded in 1955. As of 2018, HOK is the largest U.S.-based architecture-engineering f ...

in 2000, the

Postmodern Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...

addition was built on steel columns around the existing building, which allowed for its ongoing use while construction continued. Built by Estudio Aisenson contractors, Bouchard Plaza was inaugurated in 2004 with 26 stories and 100 meters (328 feet) in height; its 65,000 m² (700,000 ft²) made it one of the largest office buildings by floor area in the country. ''La Nación'' relocated its printing house to the southern Barracas district. It retained its corporate headquarters in Bouchard Plaza, however, and shares the building with the Argentine offices of Techint and

Price Waterhouse Coopers PricewaterhouseCoopers is an international professional services brand of firms, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounting ...

, among others. The property was acquired by local real estate developer

IRSA Albertirsa (formerly ''Alberti-Irsa'', sk, Irša) is a town in '' Ceglédi kistérség'', ''Pest megye'', and the middle of the Great Hungarian Plain. History Initially Albertirsa was two separate inhabitations: ''Alberti'' and ''Irsa'', havin ...

in 2007.''La Nación'': IRSA acordó la adquisición de la torre Bouchard Plaza

References

Skyscraper office buildings in Argentina Buildings and structures in Buenos Aires Office buildings completed in 2004 {{BuenosAires-struct-stub