Palacio Barolo and a Bookstore

In my post about my visit to Teatro Colón this morning, I mentioned that I also booked a tour of a building for the afternoon. That other building was Palacio Barolo.

I wandered around for a bit after leaving Teatro Colón and then had lunch in a restaurant in the Palacio Barolo building. I then went on the tour. After that, I visited a bookstore, but not just any bookstore.

But let’s start with Palacio Barolo, shall we?

Palacio Barolo

Last year, or maybe the year before, Palacio Barolo celebrated the hundredth anniversary of its opening. It is a unique building in at least one way. I’ll get to that soon, but first a bit about the tour guide.

For one thing, I didn’t catch her name. Sorry about that.

She gave the tour in Spanish and English, alternating fluidly between the two languages. She spoke English with a Spanish accent, but not so heavy a one that I couldn’t understand what she said—at least, when I realized she was speaking English.

The problem was, as I said, she spoke quickly and didn’t put in any gaps when switching between the languages. So, what with her accent and the continuous flow of her speaking, it typically took my brain a couple of seconds before it realized, “Wait, she’s speaking English now.” Once my brain recognized that, I could understand every word she said. Until, that is, I couldn’t and it took me a couple of seconds to realize that the reason I could no longer understand her was that she had switched back to Spanish.

The point is that I probably missed a lot of what she said. That, coupled with my notoriously bad memory likely means that I won’t relay much of the information here. You can probably find more on the Internet if you’re interested.

That being said, I can’t make promises about the accuracy of information you find on the internet. That’s not particularly relevant because I can’t make promises about the information I provide here, also on the Internet. Life can be cruel that way.

The building was commissioned by a man named Luis Barolo, hence its name. It was built and is still used as an office building.

As to what makes it unique, the building’s design was inspired by Dante’s Diving Comedy. There were two architects involved, both of them from Italy.

That reminds me of something I meant to report in my post on my Buenos Aires Food Tour, but I forgot to do so at the time. The guide on that tour, Eli, said that a large portion of the population of Argentina has some Italian heritage, even more than Spanish. I don’t remember the number, but I think it was something like 60% with at least some Italian heritage. Consequently, Italian-derived foods are not uncommon here.

But never mind that. The point is the two architects of Palacio Barolo were Italian. I think I heard the guide mention the Italian town of Ravenna, but I don’t know if that was where they were from or where they imported some of the materials from.

How’s the Dante Divine Comedy referenced in the building? I’m glad you asked. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have much to say.

Hell

The ground floor of Palacio Barolo is hell. (They use European floor numbering here. So the ground floor is zero and the next floor up is one. Please keep that in mind because I’m going to use their floor numbers here and I don’t want to have to keep doing the translation for you every time I do.)

On the ground floor, there is a lot of hell iconography—black sculptures with serpents, snakes, and demons.

The guide also mentioned a reference to Dante’s nine circles of hell that was on that level, but I didn’t catch what it was.

On one of the levels we were on, I don’t remember which one, the guide also mentioned several numbers associated with Palacio Barolo that were intentionally chosen as references to numbers in the Divine Comedy. I remember only two of the numbers, but I don’t remember the Divine Comedy reference, or if she even gave it.

The numbers were the height of the building: 100 metres and 22 storeys. The number of windows and balconies was also significant, but I don’t recall what those numbers or their significance were.

After we finished with the ground floor, we took elevators up to the fourth. I should stop and say something about the elevators.

They were quite old school. There was a lattice metal door on each elevator and another one on each floor for each elevator. To get on the elevator, when it arrived at your floor, you had to first manually open the door on the floor and then manually open the door on the elevator. The elevator wouldn’t start until you closed each door firmly enough that they engaged the associated latch.

There were, however, floor buttons to push. It wasn’t one of those ancient lever-controlled contraptions.

I didn’t count, but there were about a half dozen elevators positioned string the core of the building. The elevators were slow and had a maximum capacity of seven people. There were 21 or 22 people on the tour, plus the guide. It took a while for all of us to call elevators to the floor and get up to the fourth floor.

Someone asked and the guide said we weren’t allowed to use the stairs to speed things up.

Purgatory

The fourth floor of Palacio Barolo is purgatory. That floor had some decorations, but I don’t remember what they were. However, I do remember that the centre was a circular area open all the way down to the ground floor. The idea was that you could cast your sins down into hell.

I’m happy to report that there was a substantial, mid-torso-high wall around the circumference of the opening to reduce the possibility that you would cast yourself along with your sins from purgatory into hell.

The open well ended above the fourth floor.

Heaven

We then took elevators to the fourteenth floor, the start of paradise. The fourteenth floor was devoid of all decorations. The walls were bare and the light fixtures were very plain.

According to the guide, the idea was that as you enter heaven you’re supposed to cast off all material goods and materialism.

The elevators from hell stop at the fourteenth floor. You might remember that I said that the building has 22 floors. There is a two-person elevator that goes up from the fourteenth floor for anyone with severe mobility issues, but anyone else who wanted to ascend higher into heaven had to climb up a somewhat narrow spiralling staircase.

We climbed that to the twentieth floor. That floor has a series of semi-circular Juliet balconies providing amazing views of Buenos Aires. If you visit at least one of the balconies on each side they deliver, in total, a full 360-degree view of the city.

On this level, the guide divided us into two groups because there wasn’t enough room for all of us to go up to the 22nd floor at the same time.

Plus, the last two floors’ worth of spiralling staircase was even narrower than the ones up to the twentieth floor. So the second group had to wait for all of the first group to come down because the staircase was far too narrow for anyone to go up when anyone else was coming down.

You’ll never guess what’s up on the 22nd floor. A lighthouse. That’s what. And there is a functioning, high-powered, turning, light up there.

This is strange because the nearest navigable waters are four kilometres away.

The architect built another lighthouse in Montevideo with the expectation that he could connect the two structures with light. But he underestimated the distance and it never worked. However, they still turn the light on at night for tourists.

After descending from the top of heaven, we went down to I think it was the 13th floor. There’s a terrace on that floor. If you go out to the end of the terrace, turn around and look at the main part of the building you’ll see a green and white facade that’s supposed to be reminiscent of a temple in India.

The floor of the terrace is red. So, with the green and white, it quite intentionally displays the colours of the Italian flag.

After that, we went down to the seventh floor where the company that runs the tours has some offices that they kept in their original form. We had a look around there and then the tour ended.

El Ateneo Grand Splendid

The El Ateneo Grand Splendid is a bookstore. But a rather special bookstore. It’s grand and splendid. Truly.

I went there because the guide on the Buenos Aires Food Tour highly recommended visiting it. The guide and Google Maps both called it by that full name, including the “Grand Splendid.” But the signage I saw on the store just said El Ateneo.

It’s in what used to be a live theatre, probably an opera house. It’s huge. The bookshelves and tables line much of what was the floor seating area of the theatre, including along the walls. But there are also books sold on two of the tiers that would have been upper seating in the theatre.

Most of the books are in Spanish, but there is a small section of books in English.

The stage now houses an open-area cafe.

I said, that not the whole floor seating area contains books. A section has been cut out to install some escalators down to a basement level. There, they sell music on CDs and vinyl. Plus there’s a children’s book section down there.

That concluded my afternoon, but not my day. I had an evening event booked, which I’ll probably write a separate post about. But it ended too late for me to stay up to write it immediately. I’m not a night owl. So, wait for it. Unless I just don’t bother writing it. If not, you probably shouldn’t wait.