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Museum Complex Enrique Udaondo, Lujan, province of Buenos Aires
One of the most important museum complexes in Latin America
The arcades, in the seven blocks before Lujan’s Basilica, created in 1938, form a homogeneous frame together with the buildings that are part of the Museum Complex “Enrique Udaondo”.
The Complex is integrated by the Town Hall of the Village of Lujan and the Viceroy’s house.
The Town Hall was organized at the moment in which Lujan was constituted as a village. Its construction began in 1770 and, after some delays, finished in 1979. It was constructed imitating Spanish Town Halls.
It has 2 stories in the front and only one on the side where the jail cells where located.
This Town Hall was the first one to recognize the Board of Government voted on the 25th of May of 1810.
The house on the side of the Town Hall is known as the Viceroy’s House due to the fact that the Viceroy Marquis of Sobremonte slept there when on his way to Cordoba, taking with him the government treasury during the First English Invasions of 1806. The viceroy continued his journey to Cordoba, but the treasury was handed over to an English escort that had followed him all his way to the Village of Lujan.
This house also served as a prison, at different moments in history, for the Generals Beresford, Jose Maria Paz and Bartolome Mitre.
Manuel Pinzano constructed the house. It is a one-story house with brick walls over a mud basis, a gable roof covered with “thigh” tiles, windows with grills and doors with protruding boards.
An attic with a balcony, over the vestibule, stands out on the front of house.
An indicator of how old the house is, is a “divided” door that can be found on the corner, with two sheets on a 90º angle separated by a hard wood stanchion. The stores typically employed it in those times, and precisely that was the case towards 1803 when this house was employed as a “Cigar, Tobacco, and Cards Store”.
The inner distribution corresponds to the one employed in domestic architecture in the 18th century, with the main rooms surrounding a first courtyard, the only one that has been kept.
The House of the Viceroy exhibits a clear Andalusian tone on a colonial style, which is accentuated while walking along the inner courtyard. The view of the stairs leading to the upper galleries emphasizes this observation; and once in the upper floor each angle confirms the Andalusian style.
Both buildings were restored between 1918 and 1923 by Martin Noël, who added to them some neo-colonial features.
In 1923, Lujan’s Town Hall opened its door as a Historical Museum, under the direction of Enrique Udaondo, who directed the creation of all the pavilions that can still be seen in the Historical Complex.
The Museum Complex constitutes one of the most important museum complexes in Latin America.
Today’s distribution of areas in the Museum Complex is the following one:
Area 1:
- Colonial and Historical Museum – Historical Town Hall of the Village of Lujan and House of the Royal Tobacco Store
- Cultural Hall
- Direction
Area 2:
- Transport Museum
- "Enrique Peña" Library
- Library and Historical Archive “Federico F. de Monjardin",
- Archive "Estanislao Zeballos"
Area 3:
- Belgrano’s Pavilion
- Warehouse
Area 4:
- Ticket Office
- Laboratory and Restoration and Assembling Workshop
- Digitalization
About this article...
Author of the article: Grondona Olmi, Verónica
Sources employed:
- "El País que no Miramos" ("The Country we have not Seen"), a series of documentaries for television produced by Ivan Grondona. Archivo General de la Nación ("Argentina's National Archive").
- “Monumentos Históricos de la República Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Museos, Monumentos y Lugares Históricos. Secretaría de Cultura y Comunicación. Presidencia de la Nación”. (Historical Monuments of the Argentine Republic. National Commission of Museums, Monuments and Historical Places. Secretary of Culture and Communication. Presidency of the Nation). Year 2000. Pages 145 and 146.
- Felipe Pigna. Los Mitos de la Historia Argentina 1. Editorial Planeta. 4º edition. Buenos Aires, Argentina, February 2010.
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Translated by: Veronica Grondona
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