2024-01-29 10:30:00
What we know today as Pink House, headquarters of the National Executive Branch, in front of the Plaza de Mayo in the City of Buenos Aires, is actually made up of 3 buildings that have been assembled over time. One of them is the Post Office House, inaugurated on January 29, 1879which is articulated with the rest of the architectural complex.
After a tiring wander, a decade later, the Postal and Telegraph Administration moved a few blocks away, abandoning the Casa Rosada in exchange for a new building located at the intersection of Alem and Corrientes avenues. The move required works that concluded in 1928where the headquarters of postal shipments operated until it became the current CCK Cultural Center, in 2015.
But its initial location in the Casa Rosada left an imprint of enormous relevance due to the subsequent completion of the government building. Firstly, it took on the pink exterior color, imposed in 1873 by President Domingo Faustino Sarmiento to symbolize the union between unitarians, represented by the color white, and federal ones, by red.
The Pink House, three in one
On the site designated by Juan de Garay in 1580, fifteen years later, the Fort of the City of Santa María del Buen Ayre began to be built, called the Royal Fortress of San Juan. It was completed in 1720 and its purpose was to serve as the headquarters of governors and viceroys. It was surrounded by a moat and was accessed through a drawbridge.
Once the fortification was completed, between 1867 and 1873, important renovation works were carried out, ordered by Sarmiento himself. Among them was the construction of the Buenos Aires Post Office in the wing south of the old Fortworks commissioned to the Swedish architect Carl August Kihlbergwhich concluded in 1879.
A decade later, at the request of President Nicolás Avellaneda, another Swedish architect, Henrik Abergdemolished the north wing, where the old Casa Rosada was located, and built a new one, similar to the post office building, separated by a narrow alley through which the carts traveled towards the New Customs, behind.
A three-month-old baby died at the door of the Casa Rosada: she lived on the street with her parents
The current Plaza de Mayo, the institutional center of the country, was originally made up of two square plazas: the “Plaza 25 de Mayo” and the “Plaza de la Victoria”. In 1884, the first Municipal Mayor Torcuato de Alvear decided to demolish the Recova Vieja building that separated them and, in this way, they became spatially integrated.
With the transfer of the Post Office, it was decided to eliminate that void. For this, the Italian architect was summoned Francesco Tamburini, who between 1884 and 1891 built the large central arch that unifies the two bodies, forming a single block. He also made the esplanade of presidential entrance on Rivadavia street and renovated roofs and facades.
The facade on Paseo Colón It was completed later, in 1896, and caused the disappearance of the last remains of the Fort and the Customs House, demolished for the construction of Puerto Madero. The sculptural allegory called “Arts and Work crown the Republic”, the work of the Italian artist Aquiles Bianchi, was placed on it.
In 1937, the south wing of the Casa Rosada began to be demolished, in the area of the old Post Office, due to the need to generate greater vehicular links between Mayo and Paseo Colón avenues. Although the intervention managed to maintain the character and splendor of the architectural complex, the symmetry of its facades would be definitively lost.
The Casa Rosada building, which has been the headquarters of the central government since 1810, was declared a National Historic Monument in 1942.
There are the old warehouses of the New Customs, part of the Fort and the Government House Museum, and today it is possible to see fragments of an underground gallery formed by brick arches.
It is an architecture that evolved parallel to the construction of the Nation and, therefore, has witnessed marches and countermarches, architect of actions and omissions, demolitions and reconstructions. However, its impressive and renovated current appearance seems to be the prelude to a promising future.
The Pink House on dates
- 1595-1720: construction and completion of the Royal Fortress of San Juan, the Fort of Santa María del Buen Ayre
- 1867-1879: Architect Carlos Kihnlderg carried out a series of reforms ordered by President DF Sarmiento; among them, the pink paint on the exterior and the construction of the Post and Telegraph Building in the south wing of the old Fort (1879)
- 1882-1883: Architect Enrique Aberg, at the request of President N. Avellaneda, demolished the north wing and built a new Casa Rosada, similar to the existing Post Office building.
- 1884-1891: Architect Francesco Tamburini unified the two bodies that made up the complex with an imposing central arch, built the presidential entrance esplanade on Rivadavia Street and renewed its roofs and facades.
- 1892-1896: the Archs. Prilidiano Pueyrredón and Norberto Maillart completed the works, including fragments of the interior and the façade on Paseo Colón.
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