With an act that included presentations of tango and urban music, the Manzana de las Luces recovered its historic splendor after renovation works.

These works were carried out as a result of a building restoration project headed by the Ministry of Culture of the Nation that began in 2021, and in tune with the proposal of his museum: a cultural program that conceives heritage as a tool to think about the present and dialogue with the various communities.

As detailed by the Secretary of Cultural Heritage Valeria González, “The heritage value of our national museums implies, In the first instance, their own buildings, many of them declared national monument. Its preservation and building recovery is one of the fundamental objectives of our management and as a witness building that keeps layers and layers of different eras., the Apple of Lights is incomparable”.

Promoted by the National Directorate of Museums, dependent on the Secretariat, the enhancement of the property delimited by Alsina streets, Moreno, Bolívar and Peru implied the intervention in two emblematic constructions: the Former Attorney General's Office and the Former Revenue Houses.

On the corner of Alsina and Peru, the internal and external facades of the former Attorney General's Office were rebuilt, now painted white and plastered in keeping with its original appearance. In Peru and Moreno, Renting or renting houses, built in 1783 by order of Viceroy Vértiz to house the viceregal court and finally used as dungeons, They will have new roofs and improvements in facades and storm drains.

Jobs are part of a larger process than, in words of Marisa Baldasarre, National Director of Museums, seeks to recover the identity of the Apple in all its aspects. “A large part of Argentine history happened in this place, which was abandoned not only in building and patrimonial terms but also as a space to house, listen and receive the communities of today. From the Ministry we proposed his recovery in all these aspects ". And he points out that the enhancement of the site is contemplated, at the same time, within a general museum restoration plan promoted by the Ministry of Culture with building and museographic interventions and redesigns of exhibitions in spaces that presented a significant state of abandonment and outdated assemblies.

Declared a National Museum of the Manzana de las Luces Historical-Cultural Complex in 2013, the site has been the object for four centuries of multiple interventions that involved demolitions, extensions, modifications and substitutions as a result of domain changes, political decisions and functional adaptations that altered its physiognomy.

“It is very interesting to see history in the form of layers of bricks and plaster. La Manzana is a great conglomerate of temporalities, an archaeological piece in the open sky”, describes Gustavo Blázquez, anthropologist, Conicet researcher and current director of the Complex.

As one of the oldest buildings in Buenos Aires, Apple has also been "one of the worst treated", the director thinks. and details: “After the UBA left the Apple in 1971, se tiró abajo la antigua Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales y el despacho del Museo de Historia Natural donde dieron clases científicos como Hermann Burmeister o Florentino Ameghino. Más allá de estos cambios, The façade of the building received little attention and we can say that the splendor that it shows today has not been seen for decades”.

During the development of the works there were unique archaeological finds in the area of ​​the Ex Casas Redituantes: An old sewage and rainwater collection system and a cistern were uncovered., in whose study and consolidation the urban anthropology team of the Ministry works.

"The fact that the archeology courtyard that was discovered thanks to the recovery tasks can now be seen and that this gives us a record of how people lived in the 19th century is important because of its connection to built heritage", highlights Patricia Cárcova, architect in charge of the restoration and adviser to the General Directorate of Infrastructure of the Ministry.

The restoration also allows us to appreciate the superimpositions and interactions between a 19th century façade superimposed on a colonial building., and resignifies details such as the chiseling of the word "University" on the entrance door of Peru 222. “The police forces of the Onganía dictatorship brutally entered through it during the Night of the Long Canes and through it they left, with their bloody heads, students, teachers and great scientists and scientists”, says Blázquez.