History and description

In 1892 the General Director of Public Sights Carlos Thays asked the city government for some acres of land with the purpose of making a “Garden of Aclimatazation” close to the main city parks and the City Zoo in Palermo neighbourhood which would hold collections and become not only a recreational place but also a strong educational one for the population of Buenos Aires.
After 6 years of hard work, the garden was open on September 7th. 1898.

At present, it has an area of more than 7 hectares and holds a great variety of plants from all over the world, being especially important the Argentinean area.
The main building was built in 1881 and there is also a herbarium and a library. It also has 5 greenhouses as well as more than 30 sculptures.
In the park, three main different landscape gardening styles can be found; the symmetric, the mixed and the picturesque, recreated in the Roman, French and Oriental gardens.

Carlos Thays was born in Paris, France in 1849, and was a landscape architect, disciple of the famous French landscape architect Edouard André, who he worked for in many projects in Europe.

Carlos Thays arrived in Argentina in 1889, where he finally settled down with his family. He was appointed Park and Sights Director for the city of Buenos Aires in 1891.

His major projects included “tree-planting” along the streets in the city, revamping and designing public squares and sights as well as designing new parks and expanding old ones like “3 de Febrero” Park.

The major parks and squares designed by Thays are the following: Parks: Centenario, Lezama, Patricios, Barrancas de Belgrano, Colon, and Pereyra. Squares: Constitución, Congreso, and Mayo. At that time Buenos Aires had a large amount of green areas in relation with its population.

The Buenos Aires Botanical Garden was completed in 1898. Thays and his family lived in an English-style mansion located inside the gardens between 1892 and 1914, while he served as director of parks and sights of the city. Nowadays the mansion is the main building in the park. Thays died in Buenos Aires in 1934.