Galerías Pacífico and the Masterpiece Cupola Murals

Why is it significant?

Entering beneath the Beaux-Arts archway at the intersection of Florida and Avenida Córdoba, you step into Galerías Pacífico, Argentina's most luxurious and culturally storied shopping gallery.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Entering beneath the Beaux-Arts archway at the intersection of Florida and Avenida Córdoba, you step into Galerías Pacífico, Argentina's most luxurious and culturally storied shopping gallery. Originally commissioned in 1889 by merchants Francisco Seeber and Emilio Bunge as the Argentine Bon Marché, modeled after the famous department store in Paris, this palace was designed by architect Roland Le Vacher. When financial panic halted commercial plans, the building became the corporate headquarters of the Buenos Aires and Pacific Railway in 1908, from which it took its enduring name.

Stand directly at the central rotunda and look straight up into the soaring central cupola: twelve monumental fresco panels cover more than four hundred and fifty square meters of ceiling.

In 1945, architects José Aslan and Héctor Ezcurra remodeled the gallery, commissioning four titanic figures of Argentine modern art—Antonio Berni, Lino Enea Spilimbergo, Juan Carlos Castagnino, and Demetrio Urruchúa, alongside Galician painter Manuel Colmeiro—to paint the dome. Working collaboratively on scaffolding throughout 1946, these masters created an allegorical monument to human labor, agrarian nature, science, and the spiritual struggles of mankind. Berni painted the tragic allegory of unemployed laborers; Spilimbergo portrayed human intellect and solidarity; Castagnino illustrated rural pampean ranch life; and Urruchúa depicted the triumph of fraternity over war. In 1989, the building was declared a National Historic Monument, and in 1992 it reopened as a luxury shopping destination, home to the Jorge Luis Borges Cultural Center.

Gazing upward at these monumental frescoes vibrating with color and humanist compassion transforms a modern shopping stroll into an awe-inspiring encounter with Argentine modernist genius. The harmonious interplay of neoclassical architecture, arched skylights, and social realist art makes this rotunda one of the city's finest cultural gems.

Exit toward Avenida Córdoba and walk east toward the waterfront to enter Dique 4 of Puerto Madero.