Torre Monumental

Listen first. Buses sigh to a stop on the avenue, a train horn sounds from the station across the road, and pigeons scatter over the grass. Above all of this, a clock face looks down from a tower of pale stone and red brick. Every quarter hour, its bells ring out across the square. For many visitors, the melody sounds strangely familiar... as if a small piece of London has landed in the middle of Buenos Aires.

You are standing in front of the Torre Monumental, in the Retiro district. For most of the twentieth century, people in Buenos Aires called it by another name — the Torre de los Ingleses, the Tower of the English. Many older residents still use that name today. The story of those two names is the story of this tower. It moves from friendship, to fracture, to something quieter and more complicated.

The tower began as a gift. In 1910, Argentina celebrated one hundred years since the May Revolution. That was the uprising that set the country on its path to independence from Spain. Foreign communities in the city marked the centenary with monuments. The British community, large and influential at the time, chose to give a clock tower. The first stone was laid during the centenary year, but the work took several more years. The tower finally opened during the First World War.

Why was the British community so large here? Look across the avenue toward Retiro station. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, British companies built and ran much of Argentina's railway network. British banks, merchants and engineers followed. This corner of the city, close to the port and the railway terminals, was a natural place for their monument. In a sense, the tower stands at the meeting point of the trade that connected the two countries.

Now look closely at the building itself. The design is credited to the British architect Ambrose Poynter, and it draws on English and Renaissance traditions. Notice the warm red brick and the light stone trim at the corners and around the openings. Much of the material was shipped from England. The tower rises in clear stages, with the clock faces near the top. Above them sits a lantern-like crown with a weather vane. It is a calm, orderly design — not grand, but very confident.

Here is something many visitors miss. Look at the base of the tower and around the entrance. You will find carved emblems and decorative details that point to both countries. Symbols of Britain and of Argentina were included as a sign of friendship between the two nations. Take a slow walk around all four sides. Each face of the tower carries small details, and the light changes them as the day moves on.

Then listen again for the bells. The chime is widely compared to the one at Westminster in London, the famous melody of Big Ben. For British residents a century ago, far from home, that sound must have carried strong feelings. For Argentines walking to the trains, it became simply part of the city's daily rhythm. Many people in this neighbourhood check the time by ear without ever looking up.

For decades, the square around the tower was called Plaza Británica, the British Square. Then came 1982. In that year, Argentina and the United Kingdom fought a short and painful war over the Malvinas, which the British call the Falkland Islands. Hundreds of soldiers died on both sides. In Buenos Aires, feelings ran very high. This tower, a symbol of British presence, became a target for that anger.

In the years after the war, the tower was damaged by protesters. The square received a new name, Plaza Fuerza Aérea Argentina, in honour of the Argentine Air Force. The tower's official name also changed, from the Tower of the English to the Torre Monumental. A statue of the British statesman George Canning, who had supported recognition of Argentine independence in the early nineteenth century, was removed from the square. The monument stayed, but its meaning had shifted.

Here is a second detail that surprises many people. Turn and look up the slope, toward the green park of Plaza San Martín. At the foot of that park stands the memorial to the Argentine soldiers who died in the Malvinas war. Their names are listed on dark panels, and a flame burns there. Soldiers guard the memorial in ceremonial dress. So the gift of the British community and the memorial to the war against Britain now face each other across a single avenue.

That closeness is what makes this place worth a pause. Very few cities place their old friendship and their deep wound so near to each other. The tower has not been torn down, and the memorial has not been hidden. Both stand in open view. People cross between them every day on the way to work, often without thinking about it. Standing here, you can hold both stories at the same moment.

Today, the tower is cared for by the city, and at times it is possible to go inside. An elevator can take visitors up to a viewing level. From there, you can look over the rail yards of Retiro, the towers of the business district, and toward the wide brown water of the Río de la Plata. If the tower is open during your visit, the view gives you a clear sense of how the city grew around its port and its railways.

Even from the ground, the neighbourhood is worth a look. Behind the memorial, the tall, slim Kavanagh building rises over Plaza San Martín. Grand old palaces and hotels line the streets nearby. Retiro station, with its iron and glass, is one of the city's great railway buildings. All of them belong to the same era of wealth and ambition that produced the tower.

Before you move on, look up once more at the clock. Watch the hands move, and wait for the next quarter-hour chime if you can. Around you, people catch trains, cross the avenue, and sit on the grass with a coffee. The tower keeps the time for all of them, as it has for more than a century. And as you walk away, you may hear its bells behind you... a sound from another country that has become part of this one.