Kavanagh building / Edificio Kavanagh - Retiro (Buenos Aires)
S 34° 35.715 W 058° 22.473
21H E 373951 N 6170982
The Kavanagh Building (Edificio Kavanagh) is an Art Deco skyscraper in Buenos Aires, located at 1065 Florida St. in the barrio (district) of Retiro, overlooking Plaza San Martín.
Waymark Code: WMN0VK
Location: Argentina
Date Posted: 12/04/2014
Views: 2
The Kavanagh Building (Edificio Kavanagh) is an Art Deco skyscraper in Buenos Aires, located at 1065 Florida St. in the barrio (district) of Retiro, overlooking Plaza San Martín.
Edificio Kavanagh 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 m, 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 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 (Premio Municipal de Casa Colectiva y de Fachada) and three years later its facade received a similar award from the American Institute of Architects.
Its construction took only 14 months and was commissioned in 1934 by Corina Kavanagh, a millionaire of Irish 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 and Art Deco with a Rationalist approach and is considered the apex of early Modernism in Argentina.
It was at the time the highest skyscraper in Latin America. As the apartments in the new building were aimed at the upper middle classes, no expense was spared in its construction in order to insure 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.
[excerpted from Wikipedia]