Address: Balcarce 139 – Monserrat
The National Academy of History occupies the building of Balcarce 139, on the site where the hero of Independence General Antonio González Balcarce was born and where the National Congress was raised between 1864 and 1905. From the moment it established its headquarters there, the Academy became custodian of the session venue and the premises that remained standing after its partial demolition that occurred between 1944 and 1946.
The building, built between 1863 and 1864 by the architect Jonás Larguía, looked at the time of its inauguration as “austere and simple located on Calle de la Victoria, opposite the Plaza de Mayo, with its facade of three arches, its doors of elaborate bars, its classic façade and its colonial atavisms on the windows and on the lateral bodies.
Today, the room in which the Academy performs its solemn ceremonies remains practically the same as it was when the fundamental laws of the Republic were enacted: the furniture on the stage is the original, the large portrait of Valentín Alsina painted for Manzoni, the stenographers table, the benches without desks where many of the countrys leading men sat and where academics are now located; the lamps with their harmonious caireles, the decoration of the galleries and the old-pink tone of the walls.
