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The works were initiated in 1919 and finished in 1923. The building is monumental: it comprises 32 meters of width x 42 meters of length, with exit to two parallel streets: Avenida de Mayo and Hip?lito Irigoyen. Between both streets, a pedestrian alley with commercial shops is in place. The roofed surface is 16,630 square meters, distributed in 18 floors and 2 basements. The structure was entirely made of reinforced concrete, a technique with no precedents in our country by that time. The Barolo Palace was the first building considered as the “first high building” in Buenos Aires, with 100 meters.

The Palace finishes at the top with a rotating lighthouse —installed in 1923— of 300,000 spark plugs. The lighthouse announced great events, like the result of a boxing match held between the Argentinian, Luis ?ngel Firpo, and the North American, Jack Dempsey, in 1923. The Toro Salvaje de las Pampas threw his opponent away the ring for 17 seconds. However, the match continued and then Dempsey defeated Firpo.
The particular style of Mario Palanti combines modern elements —a concrete structure, floors aimed at organizing the offices, bow-windows— he cites buildings —for example, in his volume at the “Rajarani Temple”—, or take motives of different moments of the architecture history. This variety of styles and mottos is due to a severe symbiology.
Even more surprising it may result the program used to organize his work. Palanti worked in an obsessive correspondence with the poetry and partitions and hierarchies of Dante universe: Pythagoras, Arist?teles, Ovidio, Horacio, Virgilio and the Testaments.
With the Barolo Palace, Palanti rendered an homage to Dante Alighieri as the best representative of the Latin genius. Thus, the Palace is full of analogies and references to the Divina Comedia. Palanti adheres to a tradition initiated with the Gothic Cathedral: the building is an illustrated scale model of the cosmos. “The floor of the building is built based on the gold section and the gold number. The general division of the Palace and the Divina Comedia is found in three parts: Hell, Purgatory and Heaven”.
The building was inaugurated in 1923. Unfortunately, Luis Barolo could not enjoy the complete work since he died a few time earlier. In 1997, it was officially declared as a National Historic Monument and few years ago –in 2002– it was entirely restored following the original plans.
**It was the highest building in Buenos Aires during one decade, until the construction of the Kavanagh building in 1936. It is located at Avenida de Mayo N? 1370.

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