What Every Visitor Should See in Buenos Aires

Any visitor hoping to experience the ‘essence’ of 21st century Buenos Aires can do so at MALBA, (Buenos Aires’ Museum of Latin American Art nestling in the city’s Palermo neighbourhood). Even standing on the steps outside there is something about the juxtaposed glass-panelling and concrete, design symmetry and asymmetry, of the museum’s construction that reflects the duality of a city looking hopefully to the future though haunted by a difficult past. MALBA’s founders seem to have set out specifically to capture this modern ‘essence’ since they chose three young and relatively unknown Argentine architects, (Gastón Atelman, Martín Fourcade and Alfredo Tapia) to design the building from four hundred and fifty international proposals.

HISTORY

This idea of MALBA as a mirror of Argentine consciousness is particularly poignant since it opened in 2001. This was the year Argentina was forced to emerge from former-President Carlos Menem’s capitalist dream to the reality that its economic infrastructure could not support this. In the throes of the ensuing economic crash, Eduardo F. Costantini, a private collector of twentieth century Latin American art since the 1970’s, opened the doors to the new house of his collection, the centerpiece of MALBA’s offering. This is testament to Costantini’s loyalty to birthplace, since he could justifiably have opted to place his collection in Brazil, Uruguay or Spain (less economically turbulent at the time), where parts of his collection had been showcased in previous years.

THE COLLECTION

With the two hundred and seventy piece Costantini patrimony MALBA houses one of the finest collections of twentieth century Latin American Art. It features Modernists (Guttero, Figari), Surrealists (Kahlo, Lazo), Constructivists (Le Parc, Palatnik) and Pop Artists (Uriburu, de la Vega) among others. MALBA also offers temporary collections that change by the season. Film festivals, authorial lectures and debates also take place regularly at MALBA. 

FOR THE VISITOR

The growing social awareness of porteños (Buenos Aires residents) is reflected at MALBA too. Special guided tours for children, the elderly, visually impaired and mentally handicapped now also feature alongside traditional tours. Free entry is available for the disabled, the retired, students and under 12 every day and for all on Wednesday. There is also a spacious restaurant, which extends onto the patio outside in summer, to cater for the ultimate unmissable porteño indulgence – food.

Find out more things to do in Buenos Aires from On The Road Travel.

This article was submitted by Muireann Prendergast. If you have an article you'd like to submit, please send it to [email protected].

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