Galerías Pacífico is a
shopping centre
A shopping center (American English) or shopping centre (Commonwealth English), also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof.
The first known collec ...
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 ...
, located at the intersection of
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 ...
and
Córdoba Avenue Córdoba most commonly refers to:
* Córdoba, Spain, a major city in southern Spain and formerly the imperial capital of Islamic Spain
* Córdoba, Argentina, 2nd largest city in the country and capital of Córdoba Province
Córdoba or Cordoba may a ...
.
Overview
The
Beaux Arts building was designed by the architects Emilio Agrelo and Roland Le Vacher in 1889 to accommodate a shop called the ''Argentine Bon Marché'', modelled on the
Le Bon Marché
Le Bon Marché (lit. "the good market", or "the good deal" in French; ) is a department store in Paris. Founded in 1838 and revamped almost completely by Aristide Boucicaut in 1852, it was one of the first modern department stores. It was ...
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 ...
.
![Interior Galerías Pacífico](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Interior_Galer%C3%ADas_Pac%C3%ADfico.jpg)
In 1896 part of the building was transformed into the first home for the
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes and in 1908 the British-owned
Buenos Aires and Pacific railway company acquired part of the building for offices. The company's name derived from the fact that its intention was to operate a train service linking
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 ...
and
Valparaíso
Valparaíso (; ) is a major city, seaport, naval base, and educational centre in the commune of Valparaíso, Chile. "Greater Valparaíso" is the second largest metropolitan area in the country. Valparaíso is located about northwest of Santiago ...
in
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
, thereby giving access to the
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
. From that time onwards the building became known as ''Edificio Pacífico''.
Torture chamber
In 1987, a film crew uncovered an abandoned
torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...
center in the basement of the building that had been used during the
Dirty War
The Dirty War ( es, Guerra sucia) is the name used by the military junta or civic-military dictatorship of Argentina ( es, dictadura cívico-militar de Argentina, links=no) for the period of state terrorism in Argentina from 1974 to 1983 a ...
.
See also
*
Harrods Buenos Aires
Harrods Buenos Aires is a historic commercial building of a department store in Buenos Aires, Argentina located at the corner of Córdoba Avenue and San Martin. It was a branch of Harrods of London founded in 1913 by the proprietors of the London ...
References
External links
Catalogue of MonumentsGalerías Pacífico Pics
{{DEFAULTSORT:Galerias Pacifico
Shopping malls in Buenos Aires
National Historic Monuments of Argentina
Torture in Argentina
Commercial buildings completed in 1889
Shopping malls established in 1991
San Nicolás, Buenos Aires
1991 establishments in Argentina