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🇦🇷 Argentina /Culture & Society

A Bedroom in Buenos Aires’ Errázuriz Palace Is Set to Shine Again After More Than a Century

From La Nación · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

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  • The Museo Nacional de Arte Decorativo is completing the restoration of Josefina de Alvear Errázuriz’s bedroom and boudoir at Buenos Aires’ Palacio Errázuriz.
  • The rooms remained outside the public tour for decades, serving at different times as administrative offices and the Museum of Oriental Art.
  • Archival research helped reconstruct the original 1918 interiors, while the restoration also exposed a fabricated history connected to part of the furniture.

The ceiling once leaked, holes marked the walls, and folders from an administrative office filled the bathtub where Josefina de Alvear had once bathed. Nearly two decades after architect Andrés Rosarios first entered the room, her bedroom at Buenos Aires’ Palacio Errázuriz is nearing its return to public view.

The room formed part of the residence built for the Errázuriz Alvear family, one of Buenos Aires’ most prominent elite families at the beginning of the 20th century. They had spent years in Europe and wanted their home to match what they had seen there: a palace designed in Paris by a French architect, decorated by the firm that furnished European aristocracy, and filled with directly imported pieces. Even the private bathroom was intended as a declaration of status.

Rosarios first worked on the neighboring Empire-style bedroom, which belonged to the family’s son and opened in November 2005. Years later, he returned to lead and finance the larger restoration of Josefina de Alvear Errázuriz’s bedroom and boudoir. The family matriarch died in the same bed in 1935, and the room remained dismantled afterward.

The palace now houses the Museo Nacional de Arte Decorativo and holds the country’s highest level of heritage protection. The family sold the residence and its collection to the national government in 1936, and the museum opened the following year. The first-floor private bedrooms never joined the public route. The Empire room served as the museum director’s office for decades, while Josefina’s room housed the Museum of Oriental Art until that institution moved to Galería Pacífico in 2023.

Museum director Hugo Pontoriero says the original furniture had been preserved. Archival research has now enabled a precise reconstruction of the 1918 decoration, while also revealing that part of the furniture carried a false backstory. The restored space is scheduled to open in mid-November.

All the original furniture was stored.

· Hugo PontorieroThe museum director explains how the furnishings survived despite the room remaining dismantled.
About this summary

Originally published by La Nación in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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