mzn
October 3rd, 2004, 01:26 AM
This is Barolo Palace, built in 1922. It is 103 meters tall (309 ft.) and it was Latin America's tallest at the time. It carries a lot of symbolisms.
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A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY
In 1884 the Argentinean Congress approved a modernization project for the city of Buenos Aires. Hence the upcoming centenary of the Independence, and the pushing economy development at that time, the Argentinean government decided to renew the image of this portside big village up to the times most important cities. Among the many architectural innovations was the creation of the gorgeous 30 meters wide Avenida de Mayo, that connected the Executive and Legislative powers, at one end of the Avenue, the impressive Casa Rosada, on the other end, the National Congress, both buildings showing an outstanding art nouveau architecture.
The Barolo Palace was conceived at that time, responding to the needs of a modernization era.
However, this outstanding building expressed a rupture regarding the feel of that time, for its conception and shapes can be seen as a reaction to the academic aesthetics prevalent back then.
Many experts have said when referring to “the Barolo”: An ambitious skyscraper that synthesizes the ambition for progress, with its 32 meters front by 42 depth, exiting to the parallel Avenida de Mayo e Hipólito Irigoyen; between which was traced a pedestrian shopping passage. The total of 16.630 m2 are distributed in 18 floors and 2 underground floors. Entirely made out of reinforced concrete this building’s structure was a novelty in the country and one of the world’s first to be made with that technique. It was the highest building in Buenos Aires until 1934, when the Kavanagh building surpassed it in height.
The architect who brought into life this spectacular building was the Italian immigrant Mario Palanti financially supported by the uprising textile industrial –also Italian- Luis Barolo. Palanti requested the city to exceed the construction limitations of the time; they granted him that. So the building began to be thought as a center in which different trends converged bringing an idea into life, to celebrate Dante´s Latin geniality.
According to the some of Palanti’s biographies this Italian architect, who had studied in the University of Bera in Milan, belonged to a medieval lodge: Fede Santa, as Dante did. This brotherhood’s bishop - that remains to our days- is the very same Dante, who brought into life the moralizing metaphor of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, that showed three ways of being: vice, virtue and perfection. These convictions together with an aesthetic trend of the time, the gothic revival –very important at that time, for it was not only an artistic statement but a social point of view in which the need of transforming the social and spiritual life brought into life a late romantic view of the world- lined up the project. This trend can be seen in many architectural monuments of that time such as Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia and many of Rudolf Steiner’s buildings among the most representative.
The palace, therefore, was a synthesis of those conceptions. Displayed following the directions of the Southern cross, the building rises from the ground becoming a laic temple that stands upon the ascensional path for souls. Many experts assure that the building commemorates the VI Centennial of Dante’s revelation. That’s why the building’s definitions are understood in syntony with Dante’s Divine Comedy. Both –the poem’s and the building’s division is in three; there are nine hell hierarchies, as well as the amount of access vaults representing the initiation steps –there are phrases in Latin above each of them explaining them. The purgatory is divided in seven, as well as Palanti’s tower. The nine divisions of Heaven are represented in the outstanding 300,000 voltaic power bulbs lighthouse, above which it’s the Southern Cross, the entrance to heaven, that can be clearly seen during the first days of June around 7:45 PM, lined up to the Palace’s coordinates. And of course, 100 are the cantos and 100 are the meters the building rises from the ground. Most of the cantos are divided into seven or twenty two stanzas, each floor is divided in seven modules on the front and twenty two office modules and the total height of the building is divided into twenty two floors: fourteen basic stories, seven in the tower, plus the lighthouse.
All these number related information gives us an idea about the cultural background of the project as well as the spiritual intentions with which it was built.
The Barolo Palace has always been a reference point in Buenos Aires. There is a very famous anechdote around this building and lighthouse. In 1923, shortly after the project that began in 1919 was finished, there was a famous fight taking place in the US, Jack Dempsey vs. Luis Angel Firpo; at that time, this was a one of a kind event, an there were no simultaneous transmitions, nor TV. People say that there was a radio show that translated what an American radio station said about the fight. Hundreds of people gathered in front of the Barolo Palace, for from the lighthouse, through a game of lights, they indicated how the fight was developing. Not only for the Porteños who gathered in front of the Barolo, but these lights were proyected all the way to Uruguay to the Palacio Salvo in Montevideo –the Barolo Palace twin building also designed by Mario Palanti.
Both the Palacio Salvo and the Palacio Barolo were conceived by Palanti as the Hercules Columns of the Rio de la Plata. These are two main land lighthouses that connect the estuary.
Without a doubt an outstanding architectual piece that has entered the Olympus of art together with some other few modern art expressions.
AND NOW.. THE BUILDING..
http://pro.corbis.com/images/YA007563.jpg?size=67&uid={e1765777-c6ac-4929-92e4-962314e2c5c2}
http://www.rascacielosbuenosaires.hpg.ig.com.br/Palacio%20Barolo/bigimages/Palacio%20Barolo%2007.jpg
http://www.rascacielosbuenosaires.hpg.ig.com.br/Palacio%20Barolo/bigimages/Palacio%20Barolo%2008.jpg
http://tinypic.com/az9kl
http://www.rascacielosbuenosaires.hpg.ig.com.br/Palacio%20Barolo/bigimages/Palacio%20Barolo%2011.jpg
http://www.rascacielosbuenosaires.hpg.ig.com.br/Palacio%20Barolo/bigimages/Palacio%20Barolo%2015.jpg
http://www.rascacielosbuenosaires.hpg.ig.com.br/Palacio%20Barolo/bigimages/Palacio%20Barolo%2014.jpg
http://www.rascacielosbuenosaires.hpg.ig.com.br/Palacio%20Barolo/bigimages/Palacio%20Barolo%2006.jpg
--
A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY
In 1884 the Argentinean Congress approved a modernization project for the city of Buenos Aires. Hence the upcoming centenary of the Independence, and the pushing economy development at that time, the Argentinean government decided to renew the image of this portside big village up to the times most important cities. Among the many architectural innovations was the creation of the gorgeous 30 meters wide Avenida de Mayo, that connected the Executive and Legislative powers, at one end of the Avenue, the impressive Casa Rosada, on the other end, the National Congress, both buildings showing an outstanding art nouveau architecture.
The Barolo Palace was conceived at that time, responding to the needs of a modernization era.
However, this outstanding building expressed a rupture regarding the feel of that time, for its conception and shapes can be seen as a reaction to the academic aesthetics prevalent back then.
Many experts have said when referring to “the Barolo”: An ambitious skyscraper that synthesizes the ambition for progress, with its 32 meters front by 42 depth, exiting to the parallel Avenida de Mayo e Hipólito Irigoyen; between which was traced a pedestrian shopping passage. The total of 16.630 m2 are distributed in 18 floors and 2 underground floors. Entirely made out of reinforced concrete this building’s structure was a novelty in the country and one of the world’s first to be made with that technique. It was the highest building in Buenos Aires until 1934, when the Kavanagh building surpassed it in height.
The architect who brought into life this spectacular building was the Italian immigrant Mario Palanti financially supported by the uprising textile industrial –also Italian- Luis Barolo. Palanti requested the city to exceed the construction limitations of the time; they granted him that. So the building began to be thought as a center in which different trends converged bringing an idea into life, to celebrate Dante´s Latin geniality.
According to the some of Palanti’s biographies this Italian architect, who had studied in the University of Bera in Milan, belonged to a medieval lodge: Fede Santa, as Dante did. This brotherhood’s bishop - that remains to our days- is the very same Dante, who brought into life the moralizing metaphor of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, that showed three ways of being: vice, virtue and perfection. These convictions together with an aesthetic trend of the time, the gothic revival –very important at that time, for it was not only an artistic statement but a social point of view in which the need of transforming the social and spiritual life brought into life a late romantic view of the world- lined up the project. This trend can be seen in many architectural monuments of that time such as Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia and many of Rudolf Steiner’s buildings among the most representative.
The palace, therefore, was a synthesis of those conceptions. Displayed following the directions of the Southern cross, the building rises from the ground becoming a laic temple that stands upon the ascensional path for souls. Many experts assure that the building commemorates the VI Centennial of Dante’s revelation. That’s why the building’s definitions are understood in syntony with Dante’s Divine Comedy. Both –the poem’s and the building’s division is in three; there are nine hell hierarchies, as well as the amount of access vaults representing the initiation steps –there are phrases in Latin above each of them explaining them. The purgatory is divided in seven, as well as Palanti’s tower. The nine divisions of Heaven are represented in the outstanding 300,000 voltaic power bulbs lighthouse, above which it’s the Southern Cross, the entrance to heaven, that can be clearly seen during the first days of June around 7:45 PM, lined up to the Palace’s coordinates. And of course, 100 are the cantos and 100 are the meters the building rises from the ground. Most of the cantos are divided into seven or twenty two stanzas, each floor is divided in seven modules on the front and twenty two office modules and the total height of the building is divided into twenty two floors: fourteen basic stories, seven in the tower, plus the lighthouse.
All these number related information gives us an idea about the cultural background of the project as well as the spiritual intentions with which it was built.
The Barolo Palace has always been a reference point in Buenos Aires. There is a very famous anechdote around this building and lighthouse. In 1923, shortly after the project that began in 1919 was finished, there was a famous fight taking place in the US, Jack Dempsey vs. Luis Angel Firpo; at that time, this was a one of a kind event, an there were no simultaneous transmitions, nor TV. People say that there was a radio show that translated what an American radio station said about the fight. Hundreds of people gathered in front of the Barolo Palace, for from the lighthouse, through a game of lights, they indicated how the fight was developing. Not only for the Porteños who gathered in front of the Barolo, but these lights were proyected all the way to Uruguay to the Palacio Salvo in Montevideo –the Barolo Palace twin building also designed by Mario Palanti.
Both the Palacio Salvo and the Palacio Barolo were conceived by Palanti as the Hercules Columns of the Rio de la Plata. These are two main land lighthouses that connect the estuary.
Without a doubt an outstanding architectual piece that has entered the Olympus of art together with some other few modern art expressions.
AND NOW.. THE BUILDING..
http://pro.corbis.com/images/YA007563.jpg?size=67&uid={e1765777-c6ac-4929-92e4-962314e2c5c2}
http://www.rascacielosbuenosaires.hpg.ig.com.br/Palacio%20Barolo/bigimages/Palacio%20Barolo%2007.jpg
http://www.rascacielosbuenosaires.hpg.ig.com.br/Palacio%20Barolo/bigimages/Palacio%20Barolo%2008.jpg
http://tinypic.com/az9kl
http://www.rascacielosbuenosaires.hpg.ig.com.br/Palacio%20Barolo/bigimages/Palacio%20Barolo%2011.jpg
http://www.rascacielosbuenosaires.hpg.ig.com.br/Palacio%20Barolo/bigimages/Palacio%20Barolo%2015.jpg
http://www.rascacielosbuenosaires.hpg.ig.com.br/Palacio%20Barolo/bigimages/Palacio%20Barolo%2014.jpg
http://www.rascacielosbuenosaires.hpg.ig.com.br/Palacio%20Barolo/bigimages/Palacio%20Barolo%2006.jpg