The Kavanagh Building () is a famed
skyscraper in
Retiro,
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. Designed in 1934 by architects Gregorio Sánchez, Ernesto Lagos and Luis María de la Torre, it is considered a pinnacle of
modernist architecture
Modern architecture, or modernist architecture, was an architectural movement or architectural style based upon new and innovative technologies of construction, particularly the use of glass, steel, and reinforced concrete; the idea that form ...
.
At the time of its inauguration in 1936, the Kavanagh was the tallest building in
Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
surpassing the
Palacio Salvo
Palacio Salvo ( en, Salvo Palace) is a building at the intersection of 18 de Julio Avenue and Plaza Independencia in Montevideo, Uruguay. It was designed by the architect Mario Palanti, an Italian immigrant living in Buenos Aires, who used a simi ...
built in
Montevideo in 1928, as well as the tallest building in the world with a reinforced concrete structure.
It is considered one of the quintessential buildings of Buenos Aires.
A 2013
Clarín survey of 600 people who are not architects or builders found that the Kavanagh is the most liked building among
porteño
In Spanish, the term (feminine: ''Porteña'') means "port city person". It is used to refer to residents of port cities such as Buenos Aires, Argentina; El Puerto de Santa María, Spain; Valparaíso, Chile; Mazatlán, Veracruz, Acapulco and Tam ...
s. The Kavanagh Building was declared a
Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the
American Society of Civil Engineers
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
in 1994 and a
National Historic Monument of Argentina
The National Historic Monuments of Argentina are buildings, sites and features in Argentina listed by national decree as historic sites. This designation encourages greater protection under the oversight of the ''Comisión Nacional de Museos, Mo ...
in 1999.
Location
The Kavanagh Building is located at 1065
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 ...
in the
barrio of
Retiro, overlooking
Plaza San Martín.
History
![Plaza San Martín, calle Florida (1926)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/Plaza_San_Mart%C3%ADn%2C_calle_Florida_%281926%29.jpg)
![El centro de Buenos Aires en 1936](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/El_centro_de_Buenos_Aires_en_1936.jpg)
It was designed in 1934, by local architects Gregorio Sánchez, Ernesto Lagos and Luis María de la Torre, built by the constructor and engineer Rodolfo Cervini, and inaugurated in 1936. Standing at a height of 120 meters, the building is characterised by the austerity of its lines, the lack of external ornamentation, and its large prismatic volumes. It was declared a
Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the
American Society of Civil Engineers
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
in 1994 and a
National Historic Monument by the Argentine government in 1999. In the year of its completion the building obtained the Municipal Award for Collective Houses and Facades (') and three years later its facade received a similar award from the
American Institute of Architects
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to su ...
.
Its construction took only 14 months and was commissioned in 1934 by Corina Kavanagh, a millionaire of
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
descent who sold two ranches at the age of 39 to erect her own skyscraper.
The building has a towering form, with symmetrical setbacks and gradual surface reductions. It was created from the outside in, adapting outstandingly comfortable facilities to the space available. The structure was carefully designed to be as slender as possible, in order to avoid unnecessary weight, and influenced by the city planning regulations. The design combines
Modernism
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
and
Art Deco
Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
with a
Rationalist approach and is considered the apex of early Modernism in Argentina.
The concrete structure was awarded to the la Empresa Argentina de Cemento Armado, E.A.C.A., integrated at that time by engineers Garbarini, Meuer and Gorostiaga. The tender was made based on a preliminary project prepared by the well-known structural engineer Carlos Laucher. The final project of the structure was executed by the Technical Office of the aforementioned company in charge of Eng. Fernando Schwarz. This engineer faced with brilliant success the responsibility of the calculation and project of the highest concrete skeleton in the world, demonstrating great capacity, as well as technical courage, because at that time he was in the infancy of Soil Mechanics and limited tools were available to resist the action of the wind, especially with the material to be used.
It was at the time the highest skyscraper in
Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
.
As the apartments in the new building were aimed at the upper middle classes, no expense was spared in its construction in order to ensure a result of the highest quality. All 105 apartments contained the latest in technological advances, including central air conditioning, twelve
Otis elevators, and state-of-the-art plumbing. Those on the upper floors have exquisite terrace gardens with views of the river, parks and the city.
Corina Kavanagh lived for many years on the 14th floor in the largest apartment, the only one that occupies an entire floor. There is a legend that says that the shape of the building was designed as a
revenge. Corina, who was from a wealthy but not an aristocrat family, fell in love with the son of the Anchorena family, who were both wealthy and aristocratic. The Anchorenas, who lived in a palace on the other side of
Plaza San Martín (today known as the
San Martín Palace
San Martín Palace (''Palacio San Martín'') is located facing Plaza San Martín in the Retiro neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina and serves as the Ceremonial Headquarters for the Ministry of Foreign Relations.
History
The Beaux Arts ...
) and had built a church that they could see from their palace, disapproved of the engagement. In revenge, Corina made only one demand to the architects: that it would block the Anchorena family's view of their church.
Architecture
The Kavanagh Building is considered a leading example of
International Style architecture, a current known locally as
rationalism
In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".Lacey, A.R. (1996), ''A Dictionary of Philosophy ...
or modern movement.
[Balderston, González & López, 2000. p. 776] The building is sometimes classified as
Art Deco
Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
due to the similarity of both styles. ''
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 Na ...
''s Fabio Grementieri called it a "masterful synthesis of rationalism and Art Deco, of renewal and tradition, of Paris and New York."
Rationalism was introduced in Buenos Aires by intellectual
Victoria Ocampo
Ramona Victoria Epifanía Rufina Ocampo (7 April 1890 – 27 January 1979) was an Argentine writer and intellectual. Best known as an advocate for others and as publisher of the literary magazine '' Sur'', she was also a writer and critic in he ...
with the modernist house she commissioned to architect
Alejandro Bustillo, built in
Barrio Parque in 1929 and characterized by "simple cubic shapes, white walls and neat proportions".
Its contrast with the
Belle Époque-style houses of the rest of the neighborhood, popular among the city's upper classes, earned the building negative reviews. Nevertheless, Ocampo's house proved to be very influential as the rationalist style gained popularity during the 1930s. It was used in hospitals, movie theaters and a triad of high-rise buildings: the Kavanagh,
Comega and Safico buildings.
These
early skyscrapers are characterized by the
ziggurat
A ziggurat (; Cuneiform: 𒅆𒂍𒉪, Akkadian: ', D-stem of ' 'to protrude, to build high', cognate with other Semitic languages like Hebrew ''zaqar'' (זָקַר) 'protrude') is a type of massive structure built in ancient Mesopotamia. It has ...
-like approach of their design, mandated as per a municipal regulation analogous to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
's
1916 Zoning Resolution
The 1916 Zoning Resolution in New York City was the first citywide zoning code in the United States. The zoning resolution reflected both borough and local interests, and was proposed after the Equitable Building was erected in Lower Manhatta ...
, which had been adopted to stop tall buildings from preventing light and air from reaching the streets below.
The Kavanagh Building showcases the growing influence of American architecture in the region at the time, caused by the political confrontation in Europe and technological transformations.
See also
*
List of Art Deco architecture
*
List of firsts in architecture
*
List of tallest buildings in Argentina
The tallest buildings in Argentina are primarily residential and most of them were completed after 2000, with some notable exceptions being the Kavanagh Building, an Art Deco skyscraper completed in 1936, and the Alas Building, commissioned by P ...
*
List of tallest buildings in Buenos Aires
This list ranks high-rises in the Argentina, Argentine capital of Buenos Aires. The tallest structure in the city is the Alvear Tower, which rises and was completed in 2017.
Most of the city's skyscrapers are located in the Puerto Madero ''Subd ...
*
List of tallest buildings in Latin America
This list includes completed skyscrapers in Latin America that reach a height of or taller. As of 2023, there are 45 buildings that meet this criterion, 23 of which are located in Panama City, Panama.
Tallest buildings
See also
*List of ...
*
List of tallest buildings in South America
This list of the tallest buildings in South America ranks skyscrapers in order by height. South America has historically seen a relatively modest demand for skyscrapers. Most of the continent's high-rises are in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, ...
Notes
References
*
{{Authority control
Art Deco skyscrapers
Buildings and structures in Buenos Aires
Residential buildings completed in 1936
National Historic Monuments of Argentina
Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks
Residential skyscrapers in Argentina
Art Deco architecture in Argentina
International Style (architecture)