La Plata is the capital city of the
province of
Buenos Aires,
Argentina, as well as of the
partido of
La Plata. The city was planned to serve as the capital of the province after the city of
Buenos Aires was declared as the federal district in
1880. Per the , the city proper has a population of 574,369 and its
metropolitan area has 694,253 inhabitants.
Pasaje Dardo Rocha Building, named in honor of the city's founder.
La Plata was officially founded by Governor
Dardo Rocha on
November 19 1882 and its construction was fully documented in photographs by Tomás Bradley Sutton.
Its current mayor is
Pablo Bruera.
It was referred to as
Eva Perón City ("Ciudad Eva Perón") between 1952 and 1955.
History and brief description
City Hall and Plaza Moreno.
Rocha decided to erect a new city to host the provincial government institutions and the planned
university. Urban planner
Pedro Benoit designed a city layout based on a
rationalist conception of urban centers. The city (see figure) has the shape of a square with a central park and two main diagonal avenues, north-south and east-west. (In addition, there are numerous other shorter diagonals.) This design is copied in a
self-similar manner in small blocks of six by six blocks in length. Every six blocks, one finds a small park or square. Other than the diagonals, all streets are on a rectangular grid, and are numbered consecutively. Thus, La Plata is nicknamed "la ciudad de las diagonales" ("city of diagonals"). It is also called "la ciudad de los tilos" ("city of
tilia (
linden tree)") because of the large number of linden trees lining many streets and squares.
The city design and its buildings are said to possess a strong
Freemason symbolism. This is said to be a consequence of both Rocha and Benoit being Freemasons.
The designs for the government buildings were chosen in an international architectural competition. Thus, the Governor Palace was designed by
Italians, City Hall by
Germans, etc. Electric street lighting was installed in 1884, and was the first of its kind in Latin America.
Panoramic view of La Plata.
The
cathedral of La Plata, in neo-Gothic style, is the largest church in Argentina.
The
Curutchet House is one of the two buildings by
Le Corbusier in the Americas. The
Teatro Argentino de La Plata is the second most-important
opera house in Argentina after the
Teatro Colon in
Buenos Aires.
The
La Plata University was founded in 1897 and nationalized in 1905. It is well-known for its
observatory and
paleontology museum.
Ernesto Sabato graduated in physics; he went on to teach at the
Sorbonne and the
MIT before becoming a famed novelist. Doctor
René Favaloro was another famous alumnus. During its early years, it attracted a number of renowned intellectuals from the Spanish-speaking world, such as
Dominican Pedro Henriquez Ureña.
Under
Alvear's administration (1922-1928),
Enrique Mosconi, the president of the oil state company
Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales, created the
distillery of La Plata, which was the tenth largest in the world
[ Felipe Pigna, Los Mitos de la historia argentina, 3, ed. Planeta Historia y Sociedad 2006, p.153 ].
The city was renamed in
1952 as
Eva Perón; the original name was restored in
1955.
The city is home to two
football (soccer) teams that play in the
first division:
Estudiantes de La Plata and
Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata.
Railway station, La Plata.
Climate
Usually warm and humid in the summer. Mild winters.
Average temperature: 16.3°C
Average clear days: 126 Rain: 1023 Mn
Average humidity: 78%
People
Museum of Natural History.
See
Sister Cities
