El Ateneo Grand Splendid
A 1919 theatre turned bookshop, its boxes, curtain and painted dome all kept in place.
The building opened in May 1919 as the Teatro Gran Splendid, commissioned by the impresario Max Glücksmann and designed by the architects Peró and Torres Armengol. The auditorium held about 1,050 people on four levels of boxes and balconies, its ceiling dome painted by the Italian artist Nazareno Orlandi and its ornament carved by Troiano Troiani. Tango singers including Carlos Gardel performed here, and Glücksmann used the premises for his recording label before the hall turned over to cinema in the late 1920s, showing the first sound films screened in Argentina in 1929.
Grupo Ilhsa took a lease on the property in February 2000 and had the architect Fernando Manzone adapt it as a bookshop. The raked cinema seating was removed and replaced by shelving across some 2,000 square metres, while the boxes, the crimson stage curtain, the caryatids and the painted dome were kept; the former stage now holds a café. The shop stocks roughly 120,000 titles, and the interior has drawn wide notice, National Geographic describing it in 2019 as the world's most beautiful bookshop.
Highlights
- Painted ceiling dome by the Italian artist Nazareno Orlandi
- Original boxes and balconies used as reading galleries
- Café occupying the former stage behind the crimson curtain
- Opened 1919 as the Teatro Gran Splendid for Max Glücksmann
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