Usina del Arte

The impressive building in Buenos Aires was once a power plant. It was built in 1916 in the Florentine style by the Argentinian-­Italian Electricity Company and indeed resembles a palazzo in Florence.

Electricity was produced in the “Usina” up to the mid-1990s. The power plant in the ­Boca district near the old port then closed its gates. It stood abandoned for quite some time and began to fall into neglect. In 2006, the city took over the building and turned into a center for culture. The centerpiece is a ­concert hall of impressive dimensions: 23 meters wide, 103 meters long and 20 ­meters high. It offers room for 1200 guests and has outstanding acoustics. Musicians of every genre from around the world perform there virtually every day: jazz and rock are just as commonly heard as classical music – and naturally ­tango, time and again.

Today, the “Usina del Arte” is used not only for cultural events: an office used by the city adminis­tration for official events and public relations was also set up in the museum section. Transparent solid glass screens designed by Amílcar Machado’s studio for architecture cover three balconies to prevent the noise made by visitors to the museum from disturbing the employees who work there. Two of the built-in sliding glass doors measure four-and-a-half meters, whilst the other measures more than seven-and-a-half meters. The glass doors run on HAWA- Junior 120 GP and HAWA Junior 160 GP hardware. Even glass elements of this size and weight can be moved easily and safely by hand thanks to the high-quality sliding hardware.