The Avenue That Built Upward

Edificio Lapido

The white expressionist tower where the evening paper La Tribuna Popular once set its type.

You're on Avenida 18 de Julio, at the foot of Edificio Lapido. It went up between 1930 and 1933, designed by architects Juan María Aubriot and Ricardo Valabrega for the evening paper La Tribuna Popular. Presses, newsroom, shops, and apartments all shared this one white concrete block. Look at the stair tower.

A single ribbon of glass climbs its face and stops at a small lookout at the top, lit from below, which is what gives the building its expressionist pull. Then count the balconies: row on row of deep white slabs, stacked like lines of type ready for the press. Aubriot borrowed from Dutch modernism for those clean, sober faces, and the reinforced concrete frame let the tower rise higher than its neighbours. It has been a national historic monument since 1989.

When you're ready, keep Plaza Independencia behind you and walk about a hundred metres to the corner of Julio Herrera y Obes.

Museo del Gaucho y la Moneda

The free museum of gaucho culture and Uruguayan money, set in the eclectic Palacio Heber Jackson.

This is Palacio Heber Jackson, an 1890s mansion that became home to the Museo del Gaucho y la Moneda, and entry is free. The house began as a family residence in the eclectic taste of the late nineteenth century, then passed to Banco República. Inside, two collections share the rooms. One follows the gaucho, the horseman of the open countryside, through criollo silverwork, knives, paintings, and sculptures by José Belloni and José Luis Zorrilla de San Martín.

The other follows the country's money, from colonial coins to the banknotes in your pocket. Marble and high ceilings keep the feel of a private home, so the objects read as things a family actually kept, not exhibits in a hall. Before you go in, notice the corner: the mansion steps back from the avenue and gives the modern Lapido tower you just left a little room to breathe. The museum is small enough to see comfortably in a quarter hour.