Did you know two 1950 hangars at Buenos Aires’ Ezeiza airport are a national historic monument?

Hangars 3 and 4 at the Ministro Pistarini airport in Ezeiza, Buenos Aires Province, are a national historic monument of Argentina, declared by Decree 1,536/2009, according to the Argentine government’s official register of cultural monuments.

They were built in 1950 to maintain and repair the large aircraft of the time. Each structure is formed by seven reinforced-concrete arches, spaced 9 metres apart and 60 metres deep, joined by solid inverted slabs, and the complex includes assembly areas, a tool store and a parts warehouse.

The hangars belong to an ambitious project. The airport was designed by the Ministry of Public Works, headed from 1943 to 1952 by General Juan Pistarini. Construction began on 22 December 1945 and the airport was officially inaugurated on 30 April 1949. The government page says that at the time it was the largest airport in the world by surface area.

The hangars stand at kilometre 32 of the Autopista Ricchieri, inside an operating airport. Anyone hoping to see them should check with the airport operator or Argentina’s heritage authorities whether any access is possible, rather than assume the site can be visited when passing through Ezeiza.