On a visit to Buenos Aires, the Floralis Genérica is a standard stop on the Recoleta itinerary. However, mere metres away, stands an institution that has played an instrumental part in shaping today’s Argentine society.

Red, white, and black colours full of slogans, animals, and old Soviet Union-esque labour propaganda decorate the walls of the upstairs section of the alternative urban art gallery Hollywood in Cambodia. Inspired by the enthusiastic punk rock guitar riffs, artist Tester scratches away an image of a man hoisting a large hammer upon a plastic transparency.

It’s been a long wait. After nearly four years of eerie silence, music will tonight ring through the great hall of the Teatro Colón, Argentina’s most emblematic cultural monument. And, after nearly four years of painstaking repairs, we are assured that the great theatre will sparkle as it did when inaugurated on 25th May, 1908.

This may have happened to you too. You’re on a bus on Avenida Córdoba, hardly noticing anything about your surroundings beyond the fellow passengers crammed up against you on all sides and perhaps trying to catch a glimpse of your watch while beginning to gnash your teeth at the traffic gridlock. Then, all of a sudden your full attention is grasped by a resplendent block-long palace of a building.