If you didn’t come to Buenos Aires yet, you can’t imagine how Culture (with a big C) is alive around its many streets, avenues, and “caminitos”. Well, so I must tell you: Buenos Aires has an incredible cultural life. And I had the chance to witness that last Saturday: it was the second “Night of the Museums”.
The first one happened in 2008, and unfortunately I wasn’t here that day. The city has around 150 museums and cultural clubs and houses. All of them remained opened until 2 A.M. with a very diversified schedule.
Beyond the regular expositions and shows, most of them had music, theatre, lectures and even a rave-style party in front of the De La Plata River. We began our night in Puerto Madero, the newest neighborhood at the skirts of the river.
There, we entered at the City Commission of Museums, the place where the night was organized. Outside, DJs were already beginning to entertain a small crowd. In the beginning of the 20th century, the house was literally in front of the river and people used to swim as if it was a beach. But now, the city has grown and the Ecological Reserve has born from the remains of a construction site.
As raves are not much my thing, I decided to go to the City Museum, in San Telmo. There was a football (soccer) exposition with historical banners and pictures of players and teams. They also had the ball used in the first official matches. In another floor, an old toy expo, but those old dolls just seemed too much scary for me.
As the night was still young I decided to enter a different museum: the Prison Museum. Just a block from the center of San Telmo (that is Dorrego Square) there is a big and old building that used to be a female prison. Now it is the Prison Museum and has a lot of history to tell. In the dictatorship, many guerrilla women were imprisoned there and it’s possible to see even the illegal “newspapers” they prepared with news from the outside world.
In the huge courtyard, some chairs allowed to watch a lovely tango show, with a singer, and some couples dancing. Then it was already midnight, but the crowd wanted more. I decided to close the night with a traditional dinner. There’s no better way to make museums popular places.
Marcelo Barbon is a writer, journalist, amateur photographer, and
frustrated drummer. He was born in Brazil, lives in Argentina and is always looking for a great story. Marcelo is interested in untold stories from any country.
