Buying a book

Twisted Sifter has a number of photographs of the beautiful Buenos Aires ‘El Ateno Grand Splendid’ bookshop inside a 100-year-old theatre. 

Situated at 1860 Santa Fe Avenue in Barrio Norte, Buenos Aires, you will find one of the most stunning bookstores in the world. El Ateneo Grand Splendid is one of the best known bookshops in Argentina. 

Designed by the architects Peró and Torres Armengol, with ceiling frescoes painted by Nazareno Orlandi and support columns sculpted by Troiano Troiani, the grand theatre first opened in May 1919 with a seating capacity of 1,050. In the late 1920s it was converted into a movie theatre, and then retrofitted into a flagship bookshop during 2000.

According to a recent study by the World Cities Culture Forum, Buenos Aires has more bookshops per inhabitant than any other city in the world – roughly 1 bookshop per 3,937 inhabitants (Melbourne is well back at 1 per 12,945. It does fare better with the number of public libraries – Buenos Aires has one library for 35,680 inhabitants, while Melbourne has one for every 29,213 – so maybe Melbournians just prefer to borrow rather than buy!).