School architecture in the City of Buenos Aires includes primary and secondary educational establishments built by the public administration, both national and local. Its founding stone dates back to 1857 and it has been developing and evolving for more than one hundred and fifty years, going through different stages, reflecting various ideological and aesthetic conceptions.

Colonial and post-colonial period

At the time of Spanish domination, there existed in the city of Buenos Aires a precarious educational system known as “King's Schools”, they were free and supported by funds from the Cabildo, which provided scholarships to a small number of students. They coexisted with the Catholic schools that operated in different convents and parishes in the city. With the Independence of Argentina from the Spanish Empire, they became known as “Schools of the Homeland.”

During this entire period of time, there was no school architecture as such, since the schools functioned precariously in premises or homes rented by the Cabildo to individuals, a situation that would continue during the first half of the century, with the government of Juan Manuel de Rosas.

Period of the State of Buenos Aires

Only in the brief existence of the State of Buenos Aires, independent of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata between 1852 and 1861, was the first step taken towards the construction of buildings for Education, designed with this objective from the beginning. When in 1856, the governor of Buenos Aires Pastor Obligado created the Department of Schools, he appointed Domingo Faustino Sarmiento as head, who decided to install the Catedral al Sud Model School in a part of the colonial mansion where the Rosas family had lived (Moreno Street, between Bolívar and Perú). Although it was not a new building, it was the first time that a construction was specially adapted to teach classes in it.

The work on the Model School began in December 1857 and was inaugurated in 1858. Sarmiento added a high floor to the old house and adapted the interiors so that the rooms could be transformed into classrooms, in addition to roofing the old interior patio so that it functioned as the main hall.