Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral
Juan de Garay's 1580 founding document reserved this exact city block for a church — Buenos Aires was born around it.
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The cathedral occupies the same quarter-block set aside when the city was founded on June 11, 1580. It served as Argentina's Primatial church for over two centuries, until September 2024 when Pope Francis transferred that rank to Santiago del Estero, citing the first Argentine diocese created there in 1570. Declared a National Historic Monument in 1942.
What to look for
- The Rivadavia street frontage — the original adobe church had two towers that gave this avenue its former name, Calle de las Torres, until Governor Hernandarias had them demolished in 1605 for being too old
- The Plaza de Mayo facade at the corner of San Martín and Rivadavia, the precise spot Garay's founding act names as the seat of the city's church
- Any reference to the Jesuit brothers who built the first cathedral — one an architect, one a bricklayer — among the earliest religious builders of Buenos Aires
Corner of San Martín and Rivadavia, overlooking Plaza de Mayo in the San Nicolás neighbourhood — the symbolic centre of the Argentine capital.
Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral is one of 34 sights worth the detour in Buenos Aires, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Buenos Aires pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Buenos Aires
- Mas Monumental Stadium85,018 seats on reclaimed Río de la Plata marshland — the largest stadium in South America, and the ground where a World Cup Final was played.
- La BomboneraThat chocolate-box shape doesn't just look strange — the unusual design gives the bowl its famously excellent acoustics.
- Casa RosadaThe baby-pink paint was a political recipe: mix the Federalists' red with the Unitarians' white, and maybe stop a civil war.
- Teatro ColónAcoustics expert Leo Beranek surveyed leading international opera and orchestra directors and ranked this hall the world's best room for opera — not a slogan, a measured result.
- Oscar and Juan Gálvez Race TrackF1 cars once screamed through the third corner here at 305 km/h, flat out for 40 straight seconds — and the grandstands put you right on top of it.
- Palacio BaroloA 1923 tower mapped floor by floor onto Dante's Divine Comedy — hell at the base, purgatory in the middle, heaven at the top.