Plaza del Congreso
The Plaza del Congreso is a square in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires . It is located in the district of Balvanera and is on the Avenida de Mayo to the Plaza de Mayo connected. What at first glance looks like a single square are actually three contiguous squares: the Plaza del Congreso, the Plaza Lorea and the Plaza Mariano Moreno.
history
In 1782 the businessman Pedro Lorea bought a two- hectare property west of the Buenos Aires settlement and later donated around a third of this land for a carriage station. His descendants died in the British invasions in 1807 and in 1808 Viceroy Rafael de Sobremonte named the station in honor of the deceased.
Until 1871 the Plaza Lorea was used for the above purpose. When the marshes to the west of the square were drained, a market was built there and a water tower was built in Plaza Lorea and a public park was created. The economic growth in Buenos Aires in the 19th century and the construction of the Congress Palace from 1897 promoted the structural development of the Plaza Lorea, from which the square we know today gradually emerged. The sculptor Juan Eugenio Boverie created the sculpture El Perdón for a new promenade in 1896 (it now stands on the west side of Parque Avellaneda ). In 1907 a cast of the Thinker von Rodin was bought for the square .
The inauguration of the Congress Palace in 1906, at that time two blocks west of the Plaza Lorea, made it necessary for aesthetic and urban planning reasons to create an adequate new space. On September 30, 1908, President José Figueroa Alcorta signed Federal Law 6286, which passed the project. The landscape architect and then director of the municipal parks, Carlos Thays , planned an approximately three hectare plot in front of the Congress Palace, parallel to Avenida de Mayo , over which Calle Montevideo led. Thays' design was approved as only a few buildings had to be demolished for the facility.
The Plaza del Congreso was inaugurated in January 1910 by the Mayor Manuel Güiraldes and the President Figueroa Alcorta. Due to the upcoming centenary of the May Revolution on May 25, 1910, the inauguration ceremony coincided with various other openings of parks, streets and similar redesigns in the urban area, some of them also designed by Thays.
From 1910 onwards, the Avenida de Mayo and most of the other avenues and streets had been converted into one-way streets by decision of the city administration. For traffic reasons, the Plaza Lorea was already divided in 1910, in 1968 its southern half was merged with the Plaza Mariano Moreno. The Avenida de Mayo meets the Avenida Rivadavia at this point .
overview
The Plaza del Congreso is dominated by the Monumento de los dos Congresos , a work by the Belgian sculptor Jules Lagae from 1914. It commemorates the two congress meetings (1810 in Buenos Aires and 1816 in Tucumán) that ultimately led to the independence of Argentina. Therefore, the square is also referred to by many locals as the Plaza de los dos Congresos . The sculptures, including an allegory of the republic, stand on pedestals made from material imported from Nancy . In front of the sculpture there is a water basin that is supposed to symbolize the Atlantic .
The vandalism of the monument has increased since 1983, which is why a fence with gates was built around the monument in 1999. The opening of the gates in 2002 led to further damage, after which a new fence was built in 2006.
The Plaza Mariano Moreno , the southeastern part of the square, is separated from the Plaza del Congreso by the Calle Montevideo. The name recalls the leader of the May Revolution of 1810. A memorial in his honor was inaugurated in 1910. Since 1935, kilometer 0 has also been visible on Plaza Moreno , from which all distances from Buenos Aires are measured. Most recently, in 1999, a monument to Ricardo Balbín was inaugurated on the square. It also says The Thinker of Rodin. The then director of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes , Eduardo Schiaffino , had made the purchase and, together with Rodin, actually planned a place on a pedestal in front of the Congress Palace - a plan that was not implemented. However, such a move is currently being considered.
The Plaza Lorea, today only half the size of its original size, is known among the locals as Plazoleta (German: cookie, small square). On it stands the monument to José Manuel Estrada from 1947.
In 1997 the three squares and the Monument de los dos Congresos as an ensemble were declared a National Historic Monument. The legal basis was Decree 437/97.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b argentinaviajera.com.ar (span.)
- ↑ a b rivadavia.com.ar (span.) ( Memento of the original from May 31, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b buenosairesteinvita.com.ar (span.) ( Memento of the original of April 13, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Clarín of March 22, 2006 (Spanish)
- ↑ National Decree 437/97 (Spanish)
Coordinates: 34 ° 36 ′ 35 ″ S , 58 ° 23 ′ 24 ″ W