Buenos Aires Museums

To be blunt, Buenos Aires is hit or miss when it comes to museums. Some collections are magnificent, and rival, or surpass, those of the world’s greatest museums with a fascinating blend of indigenous Argentine works and items from the Old World. On the other end of the spectrum are some downright bizarre museums, complete with sickeningly large collections of weapons and wax models showing gruesome snake wounds. Such displays are, of course, enjoyable in their own right (especially if you happen to enjoy viper bites and guns). There are also the standard museum offerings any tourist would expect from BA, from shrines to Evita and tango crooners to collections solely devoted to Argentina’s never-ending love affair with soccer.

Monserrat

Museo Etnográfico Juan Bautista Ambrosetti. Just off Plaza de Mayo, this small but excellent museum displays a variety of ethnographic exhibits from around the world. The most fascinating and impressive ...more

Microcentro

Museo Mitre. This small museum was once the home of Bartolomé Mitre, who was the president of Argentina from 1862 to 1868 and founder of the important newspaper La Nación. The rooms on display, which ...more

San Telmo

Museo Del Traje. This small but entertaining museum hosts rotating exhibits of period clothing from the 17th century to the present. Past exhibits have covered, well, pretty much everything—indigenous ...more

La Boca

Fundación Proa. This large, remodeled mansion is widely regarded as one of Buenos Aires’ best art museums for the caliber of its temporary exhibits. Though the museum, which expanded in 2008 ...more

Puerto Madero

Museo Fragata Sarmiento. Docked in Dique 3, this perfectly maintained museum ship was built in England in 1897 and served as one of the Argentine navy’s most important vessels at the beginning of ...more

Retiro

Museo Municipal De Arte Hispanoamericano Isaac Fernández Blanco. Say that name five times fast. Located in the Palacio Noel, this gorgeous museum, with a name sadly too long for a reasonable acronym ...more

Recoleta

Centro Cultural Recoleta. In a bright red edifice neighboring Recoleta’s cemetery and basílica is one of Buenos Aires’ best cultural centers, built in the early 17th century for a group ...more

Palermo

Museo De Arte Latinoamericano De Buenos Aires (Malba). Housed in a beautiful, airy building in northern Palermo, the MALBA is undoubtedly one of Buenos Aires’ best art museums, and unlike many ...more

Belgrano

Casa De Yrurtia. This madhouse of a museum is packed with works by early 20th-century Argentine sculptor Rogelio Yrurtia and his second wife, the daughter of his mentor, painter Lía Correa Morales. ...more