Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires in the Piccardo Tobacco Factory

Why is it significant?

Standing before Avenida San Juan 350, you are facing the imposing exposed-brick facade of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, affectionately known as El Moderno or MAMBA.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Standing before Avenida San Juan 350, you are facing the imposing exposed-brick facade of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, affectionately known as El Moderno or MAMBA. Originally erected in 1918 as the central manufacturing plant and storage warehouse of the Piccardo and Company tobacco empire, this building is a prime example of British industrial architecture. Its rhythmic rows of segmental arched windows, load-bearing red-brick masonry, and monumental wooden timber doors recall the bustling commercial riverfront of early twentieth-century Buenos Aires.

Look above the heavy entrance door: the original carved wooden lintels and industrial iron brackets have been meticulously conserved, honoring the working-class factory history of San Telmo.

Founded in 1956 by dynamic art critic Rafael Squirru, the Moderno operated in temporary spaces until 1989, when the city relocated the institution to this converted industrial complex. A major expansion completed in 2018 transformed the interior into a world-class cultural hub featuring over four thousand square meters of exhibition galleries connected by a sculptural black steel staircase. The museum houses an extraordinary permanent collection of more than seven thousand works spanning Argentine and international modernism from the 1940s to the present. Here you will find seminal kinetic sculptures by Julio Le Parc, geometric abstractions by the Madí group, surrealist canvasses by Xul Solar, and provocative pop creations by Alberto Greco and Marta Minujín, who revolutionized Latin American conceptual art during the 1960s at the nearby Instituto Di Tella.

Stepping from San Telmo's colonial cobblestones into these soaring industrial galleries of cutting-edge contemporary art provides an electrifying cultural contrast. Wandering between vibrant multimedia installations, avant-garde kinetic sculptures, and bold conceptual paintings, you experience the dynamic artistic restlessness that keeps the Argentine capital at the forefront of international culture.

Walk west along Calle Defensa for one block to reach the historic towers of the Church of San Pedro Telmo.