El Cilindro
On a November night in 1967, 120,000 people packed this bowl to watch Racing beat Celtic — the highest attendance ever recorded at an Argentine stadium.
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Built by GEOPÉ, a subsidiary of the German firm Philipp Holzmann known for rebuilding cities after World War II, and funded by a Perón government loan, El Cilindro opened in September 1950 and hosted the 1951 Pan American Games opening ceremony before that record crowd. It was designed for 120,000; safety regulations have since cut approved capacity to 50,880.
What to look for
- Siemens lighting towers, first switched on in 1966 during a friendly that Racing won 3-2 against Bayern Munich
- The concrete bowl's compressed scale — originally built for 120,000, now capped at 50,880
- Racing club insignia throughout: the stadium's official name is Estadio Presidente Perón, after the president whose government financed it
The stadium is in Avellaneda, not Buenos Aires city — account for the extra travel time when planning your visit.
El Cilindro 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.