Buenos Aires
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National Bank
The central house of the Banco de la Nación Argentina is the work of Argentine architect Alejandro Bustillo, who was commissioned at the end of the 1930s to make an "eternal monument". The building began to be built in 1940 and was of an unprecedented scale for the city, for this reason, Bustillo devised the completion of the construction in stages.
On July 21, 1944, the first stage of the building was inaugurated, representing 60% of the initial project. After some years in which the work was paralyzed, the second stage was finished for 1955.
The Banco Nación, on the outside, repeats motifs of 18th-century French architecture and is covered with quartzite stone brought from Chapadmalal and Balcarce. The interior is organized around a large roundabout without columns, resolved on a monumental scale, the walls show a surface made of travertine marble and the floors are made of granite. The offices are covered with cedar and mahogany woods. The doors are made of iron and bronze and are operated with an electromechanical system, moving them requires about five minutes: each has a weight that varies between ten and seventeen tons.
Tips
The Banco Nación was called the Hueco de las Ánimas (hollow of the souls) because it was located between two old cemeteries, now covered by asphalt. There are multiple legends of ghosts roaming the halls. The current subsoil of the bank, where the personal safe deposit boxes are located, is still called by that name.
Another curious fact is with respect to the dome of the building, which is partially glazed and is one of the largest in the world, measuring 50 meters in diameter and 36 meters high, located behind the dome of St. Peter's Vatican and the Capitol from Washington.
In its origins, the place where the bank was built provided the basis for the first building of the Teatro Colón, which operated from its inauguration in 1857 until it closed its doors in 1888.
Pratical Information
Price
Free
Transport
Av. Rivadavia and 25 de Mayo