Buenos Aires: Guide of Museums

Primer Museo Histórico Ernesto Che Guevara
Address: Rojas 129. Caballito
Phone: 4903-3285
Numerous photographs, private letters, personal objects such as toys of his childhood, books of his adolescence, poems, diverse writings and many other objects allow visitors to know the life of "Che" and also part of the history of Cuba as well of Latin America.

Torre Monumental
Address: Plaza Fuerza Aérea Argentina (frente a Estación Retiro). Retiro
Phone: 4311-0186
This "Torre Monumental" was donated by British residents to the Argentine Republic on the centennial anniversary of the 1810 May Revolution. This building was opened in 1916 and the architect in charge was Ambrose Poynter, who designed the Tower in the Renaissance style and all material used as well as technicians and workers came from London. This Tower exhibits in its five rooms historic and contemporaneous expositions of photographs.

Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales Bernardino Rivadavia
Address: Av. Ángel Gallardo 490. Caballito
Phone: 4982 6595
Created in 1812 by Bernardino Rivadavia, the museum still conserves studies and exhibits topics of the Argentine nature: fauna, flora, mineralogy, geology and paleontology. The great attraction is the Paleontology Room "Florentino Ameghino" where it is exhibited a collection of giant dinosaurs and other reptiles of the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretacic periods of our country, together with invertebrates and fossil vegetables.

Museo Argentino del Títere
Address: Piedras 905. San Telmo
Phone: 4304 4376
It was created in 1983 with the purpose of documenting the activity of national and international puppeteers and companies. The patrimony of this museum comprises above six hundred puppets and about four hundred ones are exhibited, sorted by their origin and technique.

Museo Casa Carlos Gardel
Address: Jean Jaurés 735. Balvanera
Phone: 4964-2015
The museum was opened in March 2003, at the house where Carlos Gardel and his mother used to live. The house was rebuilt by the City Government based on the original conception. The museum exhibits Gardel universe, from the myth created in every mind to the intimacy of his private life.

Museo Casa de Ricardo Rojas
Address: Charcas 2837. Recoleta
Phone: 4824-4039.
Ricardo Rojas has been an Argentine writer, poet, playwright and politician. His house has been given by his wife to the Museum foundation, together with a valuable collection of objects and a library. The façade, with an American colonial style, resembles the House of Tucumán, flanked by two Salomonic columns and iron-bordered windows. The interior of the house exhibits a religious painting from the Cuzco school, furniture, carpets, and a great quantity of decoration objects, documents and antique books.

Museo Casa de Yrurtia
Address: O´Higgins 2390. Belgrano
Phone: 4789 0094
The Argentine sculptor Rogelio Yrurtia (1879-1950), author of "Canto al trabajo" and "Monumento a Manuel Dorrego" -among other works located in Buenos Aires city-, donated to the Nation, together with his wife the painter Lía Correa Morales, his neocolonial house in the Belgrano neighborhood. There is an exhibition of, drafts and studies, works made in bronze and gypsum, paintings, furniture, utilities and decorative objects of the artist.

Museo Casa del Teatro
Address: Av. Santa Fe 1245. Retiro
Phone: 4811-7678
The Casa del Teatro ( Theatre house), gives free lodging to actors and also is the venue of a museum. Within the museum room Regina Pacini de Alvear, creator of the House, there is an exhibition of opera singers photographs, orchestra directors, books and souvenirs of her sojourn in France with her husband Dr. Marcelo T. de Alvear, as well as photographic documents of the Institution’s beginning. The room Carlos Gardel exhibits personal documents, photographs, objects, letters and clothes of the unforgettable singer.

Museo Casa Houssay
Address: Viamonte 2790. Balvanera
Phone: 4961-8748
The house where Dr. Bernardo A. Houssay had lived for his last forty five years has been officially declared as a Historical monument. Today, it is a museum where diplomas, medals and gala clothing used by him in ceremonies of the most prestigious universities and institutions of the world. It was re-inaugurated on February 28, 1992.

Museo Penitenciario Argentino Antonio Ballvé
Address: Humberto 1º 378. San Telmo
Phone: 4361-0917 int. 207
It was opened in 1980; this museum is located in an 18th century building that over the years housed an institution for mentally insane women, powder(?) magazine and even a women's jail. Its rooms exhibit, among other elements, weapons, uniforms of the Federal Penitentiary Service of different periods, elements made by prisoners, furniture and photographic material from the former jail in Tierra del Fuego.