Pasaje de la Defensa and the Patrician Residence

Why is it significant?

Step through the tall wooden double doors of Defensa 1179 into the quiet sunlit courtyards of Pasaje de la Defensa, also known historically as the Casa de los Ezeiza.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Step through the tall wooden double doors of Defensa 1179 into the quiet sunlit courtyards of Pasaje de la Defensa, also known historically as the Casa de los Ezeiza. Built around 1880 as the lavish private town mansion of the wealthy and aristocratic Ezeiza family, this grand two-story residence exemplifies the Italianate neo-Renaissance domestic architecture favored by Argentina's high society before the yellow fever outbreak. The estate is laid out around two consecutive interior courtyards, known as patios, paved with imported Italian Carrara marble tiles and shaded by graceful second-floor galleries lined with wrought-iron balustrades.

Notice the lush green potted palms and old cistern in the center of the first patio: this was the private sanctuary where high-society women took their afternoon mate away from street dust.

When the 1871 yellow fever epidemic struck San Telmo, the Ezeiza family, terrified of the mosquito-borne pestilence, fled this mansion to establish a new estate in the northern suburb of Recoleta. The abandoned palace was subsequently leased and subdivided into a crowded conventillo, or collective tenement house. By the early 1900s, more than thirty immigrant families—mostly impoverished workers from Italy, Spain, and Eastern Europe—lived crowded into these thirty individual rooms, sharing a single kitchen and washing courtyard. It was inside these crowded conventillos that diverse cultures fused: Italians, Spaniards, Afro-Argentines, and Creoles shared meals, blended dialects into the colorful slang known as lunfardo, and invented the music and dance steps of tango. Today, the lovingly restored mansion houses bohemian antique shops, leather workshops, and vintage fashion ateliers.

Walking along the creaking wooden floorboards of the upper loggia allows you to glimpse both aristocratic elegance and immigrant struggle in one space. Gazing down at the marble courtyard where children of Italian, Spanish, and Creole immigrants once played together, you feel the profound cultural melting pot that shaped modern Argentina.

Walk around the corner toward Pasaje San Lorenzo to discover the celebrated Casa Mínima.