Buenos Aires, Argentina

The Skyline

Day 6: Tuesday, January 9, 2002

The Buenos Aires Skyline

6:06 AM: Our ship glides into the Buenos Aires harbor.

Buenos Aires dates from 1526, when Spanish explorer Pedro de Mendoza camped on a bluff above Rio de la Plata. Mendoza's oversized expedition of 16 ships and nearly 1600 men arrived too late in the summer to plant crops, and the area's few Querandi Indians responded violently when the Spaniards forced them to seek food. They later abandoned the site in favor of one inland where the Guarani people were more obliging. Over the centuries, Buenos Aires grew slowly with the increase of enormous herds of cattle and horses that had proliferated on the pampas.

Current day Buenos Aires has a population of approximately 11 million people, and a reputation as being the Paris of the South which leads travelers to expect European styles, and in fact, many of the capital's turn of the century buildings would not be out of place across the Atlantic. There may be a better representation of early 20^th century Western European styles here than in many parts of Europe, since the devastation of WWII. Buenos Aires, by contrast, has experienced erosion through economic decline.

The cultures and customs make Buenos Aires a unique and classical city to visit.

Note: Keeping a Web site can lead to friendly communications with people from all over the world. In late 2003, Sebastián Silva of Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires asked permission to use some of the pictures presented on this page for an ad for their graduate studies in architecture.
In the spirit of friendship we occassionally grant such permissions.
Click this link to see what developed.

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