Galerías Pacífico occupies a Beaux-Arts building in central Buenos Aires designed in 1889 by architects Emilio Agrelo and Roland Le Vacher, originally intended as an upscale department store modeled on the Bon Marché in Paris. Financial crises delayed those plans, and the building instead housed the city’s first fine arts museum before becoming offices for the British-owned Buenos Aires and Pacific railway, which gave it its name.
Declared a National Historical Monument in 1989, the building was converted into a shopping gallery that reopened in 1990. Its central dome is painted with monumental 1946 murals by four leading Argentine artists, Antonio Berni, Lino Enea Spilimbergo, Demetrio Urruchúa, and Juan Carlos Castagnino, making it as much an art destination as a retail one.
A stroll through the galleries, dome viewing, and a coffee at the Madison Café beneath it takes about an hour to ninety minutes; the free Borges Cultural Center inside adds more time for art lovers.
