Following the rain damage in February 2010, access to Recoleta Cemetery through the main entrance gate was restricted. Urgent repairs were necessary, & at the closing of this blog in March some restoration had begun. Returning 3.5 months later, the city government seems to have taken advantage of events to undertake a larger project.

A few details are available on an infopanel located outside. In the space of 45 days, the city will pay Naku Construcciones about 225,000 pesos (currently U$S 57,000) for restoration under the supervision of architect Santiago Jorge Bayazbakian. Of Armenian descent, Bayazbakian has done a number of works for the city under Macri’s administration. What’s unclear is how the final project will look. Sketches show day & night representations of the cemetery, but as it appeared before the staircase destruction in May 2010… no handicapped ramp to be found:

Covering the entire gate is the following text:

Aquí se encuentra el peristilo de acceso al Cementerio de la Recoleta, obra del arquitecto Juan Buschiazzo. La construcción del peristilo le fue encomendada en 1880 por el primer Intendente de la ciudad de Buenos Aires, Torcuato de Alvear, en el marco de la remodelación integral del Cementerio. Consiste en un pórtico de entrada con doble hilera de columnas dóricas y escalones de mármol de Carrara blanco. Fue declarado Monumento Histórico Nacional por Decreto 1.289/07. La obra actual busca readecuar el acceso al peristilo del Cementerio de la Recoleta, recuperando su diseño y características al momento de ser declarado Monumento Histórico, resguardando y poniendo en valor este destacado icono del Cementerio y de la ciudad.

Here can be found the peristyle entrance of Recoleta Cemetery, the work of architect Juan Buschiazzo. The peristyle’s construction was commissioned in 1880 by the first mayor of the city of Buenos Aires, Torcuato de Alvear, as part of a remodel of the entire cemetery. It consists of an entrance gate with double rows of Doric columns & white Carrara marble staircases. It was declared a National Historic Monument by Decree 1,289/07. Current works seek to refurbish the peristyle entrance, recovering its design & characteristics at the moment it was declared a historical monument, saving & recognizing this well-known icon of the cemetery & of the city.

It is interesting how the text alludes to the staircase destruction for those in the know & how it provides a cryptic message for those who don’t. There is no mention of rain damage. If the staircase is to be replaced, where will the marble come from? Seems like such a large project would take more than 45 days.

Given current works, the main entrance has been under construction/destruction for over one year:

Until completion of the project, the only access to Recoleta Cemetery is via a service entrance to the left of the main gate:

At first glance, the Uribe y Lecea family tomb may not stand out much from its neighbors in Recoleta Cemetery. But on closer inspection—just above the false column capitals—two Stars of David hide in the shadows:

Marcelo spied the symbols during a visit earlier this year with his daughter… to our mutual surprise. Despite more than 1,000 visits to the cemetery, this discovery proves that there is always something new to be found. Since the removal of the plaque on the Benjamín Breitman family vault, this is the only Jewish image currently in Recoleta Cemetery. Also remarkable is the Christian symbolism outside & inside:

Was this tomb purchased & remodeled like so many others? Did family members convert? Or did they not care about the mixed symbolism? While searching for the answers to these questions, the PDF guidebook will be updated to reflect the recent discovery.

Found inside the Familia Ovidio Giménez-Ema Korek tomb. Previous reflection photos can be found here & here. Sally Blake (a.k.a. Sallycat) sent me a heads-up earlier this year about Julie-Anne Cosgrove who takes photos in the same vein.

The same issue of Gente magazine with the cover story “Los restos de Eva Perón están en Argentina” contained another surprise. Immediately following the Eva Perón article was a short photo essay entitled:  “Devuelven los restos de Aramburu.” What luck!

Pedro Aramburu became de facto President of Argentina after a 1955 military coup ousted Perón. Aramburu was also behind the theft of Eva Perón’s embalmed corpse, her posthumous journey around Buenos Aires & her eventual burial in a Milan cemetery. Kidnapped & killed by the Montoneros (a pro-Perón paramilitary organization), Aramburu was buried in Recoleta Cemetery in 1970. Although Eva’s body was returned to Perón the following year, he did not bring her back to Argentina after his 1973 re-election… Eva remained in the former Perón residence in Madrid. The death of Perón in 1974 sparked the bizarre chain of events reported by Gente magazine.

The Montoneros presented an unresolved issue to Isabel Perón after she became President: they wanted Evita back in Argentina. To make sure their demands were heard, they broke into Recoleta Cemetery, broke through the bronze doors of Aramburu’s crypt & stole his casket. Isabel acquiesced & arranged for Eva to be brought back to Buenos Aires. Aramburu’s casket was returned to Recoleta Cemetery after being discovered in an abandoned truck, & his crypt was supposedly filled with concrete to prevent any possible desecration in the future. As of 2004, the damage inflicted by the Montoneros on Aramburu’s tomb could be easily seen… notice the broken hinge in the photo below. Don’t expect to see this today; it has since been repaired:

The article in Gente provides hard-to-find photographic evidence of the events described above. The police found Aramburu’s casket alongside Parque Las Heras in Palermo, & the location looks pretty much the same today as it did in 1974. Following is the complete text of the article with some comparison photos taken in July 2010.

————————————————

Less than two hours before the plane with the remains of Eva Perón would arrive in Argentina, the cadaver of Pedro Eugenio Aramburu was returned. The coffin was found in an abandoned pick-up truck on Salguero Street, where the National Penitentiary was once located.

The discovery. In this pick-up truck, abandoned in front of 2410 Salguero Street, at 08:30 on Sunday, the remains of the provisional ex-President Pedro Eugenio Aramburu were found. His cadaver had been stolen on the evening of October 15th from his mausoleum in Recoleta by an extremist group which broke the padlocks of his vault after having hidden inside the cemetery after the normal closing time of the main gates.

Police response. After the return of the cadaver had been anonymously announced, the pick-up truck was surrounded by police & patrolmen. There was a green cross on the left side of the vehicle’s windshield, commonly used by doctors. The cadaver’s return was communicated by anonymous phone calls to various newspaper offices.

Arrival of the police. Uniformed & plainclothed agents arrived rapidly on the scene. The casket was taken to the Mounted Police headquarters, where Aramburu was identified by General Bernardino Labayru & Mr. César Noguera, friends of the assassinated provisional ex-President.

Details. The pick-up truck had shaded windows & lacked a tailgate. [Obviously a reporter's mistake. See the photo below.] To cover the casket, the extremists used two sheets of styrofoam and wrapped it with sheets of brown plastic sewn together. On the lid of the casket, intact, were the crucifix & bronze plaque with the name of Lieutenant General Pedro Eugenio Aramburu.

Remember: The complete story of Eva Perón’s postmortem journey can be found in the Recoleta Cemetery PDF.

Above is a composite photo taken today requesting that anyone entering the cemetery kindly refrain from photographing caskets.

Not sure why anyone would care… part of the benefit of being laid to rest in Recoleta Cemetery is that all visitors can take a peek inside the family vault. No one seemed to be monitoring but if someone has more info about this recent regulation, I would gladly add it to this post.

Over the next couple weeks, there will be a bit of new content added here since big changes taking place at the cemetery these days… maybe even a new bio! How exciting :)

All good things must come to an end, & after several years of researching Recoleta Cemetery it’s time to move on to other projects.

That’s not to say there won’t be any more posts ever. We will likely continue to post as time permits but nothing as regular as our standard 3 posts/week. The prolonged pause is necessary in order to develop additional walking tours around Buenos Aires… & the rest of the world. Exciting stuff. Also, another year of full-time work in Europe means I will be away from Buenos Aires for most of this year.

By way of a summary, here are a few interesting stats:

First post: 03 Oct 2007

Total # of posts: 400

Total word count: almost 82,000 or about the size of a small novel

Readership: over 3,000 unique visitors per month, about 180-200 per day. Amazing for a blog about a cemetery!

Most comments: Liliana Crociati de Szaszak

Total number of photos posted: almost 1,200

Photos which can be viewed large in Flickr: 81

Number of bilingual posts: currently 155, or 39%

Posts which still need to be written: Roca, Lavalle, Dorrego, several tombs which are considered a National Historic Monument & many others

This blog will remain online for as long as possible. Since so little information in English exists about Recoleta Cemetery, this should remain a valuable resource for the future. Much work is left to be done to make the blog completely bilingual… it will come eventually. Purchasing the PDF or making a donation will help maintain this site for everyone.

The demystification of urban legends is something Marcelo & I have worked hard to accomplish. Recoleta Cemetery—the most visited site in Buenos Aires—has much more value than those few wild & crazy stories. As the last paragraph of the PDF guidebook states:

… in spite of all the money spent to be immortalized forever, it is difficult to ignore the irony that so many prominent families have fallen on hard times. Argentina today is not the country those families envisioned, whatever their personal ideology. Several of the same issues they tried to resolve still exist today for a different generation. Recoleta Cemetery should therefore offer guidance & hope for the future. What better place to be inspired by beauty, honor past achievements & learn from previous mistakes?

With a long history of military participation in Argentina, Bustillo family members saw action in the 1806 British invasion, the fight for independence under General José de San Martín, the struggle for national organization between Urquiza & Rosas, & the War of the Triple Alliance. But it was Alejandro Bustillo who made the most lasting contribution to Argentina as an architect for some of its largest cities.

Born in 1889, Alejandro graduated with a degree in architecture in 1914… no doubt inspired by his uncle, Eduardo Madero. His early works were mainly private dwellings but by the 1930s, Bustillo produced dozens of major buildings seemingly without stopping for breath.

Among some of his best known constructions are the hotel-casino in Mar del Plata (1938), headquarters for the Banco de la Nación in Buenos Aires (1940), & the cathedral & Hotel Llao Llao in Bariloche (1938-40). All are pictured below:

Bustillo claimed to be influenced by Albert Speer, chief architect for Hitler… evident in the scale of his larger works. Considered one of the great 20th-century architects of Argentina, Alejandro Bustillo passed away in 1982 at the age of 93.

The family tomb is the oldest in Recoleta Cemetery. At a time when graves were typically for individuals (remember Remedios de Escalada has the oldest single plot), the Bustillo family was one of the first to build a mausoleum. It dates from 1823, constructed only one year after the cemetery’s opening:

Family founder Federico Augusto Rufino Leloir Bernal possessed a large land fortune along the southern coast of the Buenos Aires Province. He & his wife traveled to Paris in 1906 for medical reasons, but unfortunately Federico passed away. One week later, Luis Federico was born… the last of five siblings.

Luis Federico Leloir without doubt became the most famous member of the family. His 1949 discoveries in biochemisty led to a Nobel Prize in 1970. Leloir & his team were the first to identify nucleotide sugars which are instrumental in accumulating energy stores in the human body:

Ten years after his initial discovery, Leloir found that nucleotide sugars are responsible for transferring sugars to molecules which grow to an immense size & become glycogen… seemingly endless chains of glucose waiting to be broken down to provide energy:

As his studies progressed, Leloir proved that human biosynthesis is not merely a reversal of breakdown, as had been assumed earlier. On the contrary, they are distinct processes. Leloir’s principle was also shown to be valid with proteins and nucleic acids, leading to discoveries about organ donor rejection & lactose intolerance. Leloir passed away in 1987, five years after receiving a cross from the French Legion of Honor.

The family vault, built in 1906 with opulent Art Nouveau decoration, is one of the tallest in the cemetery:

What distinguishes the mausoleum are its mosaics. The underneath side of the dome is decorated with an image of Christ surrounded by angels. The mosaic can be seen from the interior of the mausoleum through a skylight… Christ appears dramatically overhead:

The interior is also lavishly decorated with mosaics & Art Nouveau imagery… press your nose to the glass for a look inside:

Leloir also has one other claim to fame:  the invention of a condiment. He came up with salsa golf at the Golf Club at the seaside resort of Mar del Plata. Basically a combination of mayonnaise & ketchup, it remains a popular, non-spicy alternative to cocktail sauce & a key ingredient of a local salad made with hearts of palm.

A gigantic mausoleum commemorates the life of Salvador María del Carril, an important figure in the early days of Argentine history. Born in San Juan in 1789, Del Carril studied law & moved to Buenos Aires to participate in national politics. He firmly supported President Rivadavia & encouraged General Juan Lavalle to shoot his childhood friend, Manuel Dorrego, thinking it would prevent civil war. It didn’t.

Del Carril lived in Uruguay during the Rosas period & met his wife, Tiburcia, there… 25 years younger than him. His political life continued to grow in spite of being in exile. Good friends with Justo José de Urquiza, Del Carril was selected as his Vice-President and godfather of the general’s first-born son. In later years, Bartolomé Mitre appointed him to the Supreme Court. Del Carril passed away in 1883, & Tiburcia had this elaborate construction built to honor his memory.

In spite of Del Carril’s decades of participation in Argentine politics, he is also well-known for having major marital problems. Tiburcia apparently liked to spend Del Carril’s fortune… to a point where he published a letter in several major newspapers claiming that he would no longer be responsible for his wife’s debts. That obviously didn’t go over well with Tiburcia:

Rumor has it that before she passed away in 1898—fifteen years after her husband—Tiburcia requested that her bust look away from Del Carril for eternity. To this day, the unhappy couple have their backs to each other: