Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires is a public high school in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In the tradition of the European gymnasium it provides a free, rigorous, multi-disciplinary education that includes classical languages such as Latin and Greek. The school is one of the most prestigious in Argentina and Latin America. Many well known personalities, like two Nobel laureates, four presidents of Argentina and a four-time Grammy awardee have studied there.

1 History
2 Facilities
3 Building
4 Reading
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] History

Old Physics Class

Its origins date to 1661, when the Colonial Spanish government entrusted the Jesuit Order the education of the youth. Since the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spanish-controlled South America the institution has been controlled by many different organizations.

The current "incarnation" was founded by president Bartolomé Mitre in 1863. Since 1911 the school has been a part of the University of Buenos Aires.

Admission is a highly competitive process involving multiple exams. Alumni include many of Argentina's Founding Fathers, presidents, scientists, artists and ideologists, and Nobel laureates Carlos Saavedra Lamas and Bernardo Houssay.

[edit] Facilities

The school offers a wide variety of activities and resources for the students, including a fully-equipped astronomy observatory, a swimming pool, a cinema, a sports campus with soccer, football, rugby, handball, volleyball and basketball courts. Many free classes are available such as astronomy, photography, languages, sailing, and martial arts. The sailing team is especially important, as it has won most of the local competitions.

Nowadays, students from the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires rank among the best in most science Olympiads, such as the IPhO, IChO and IBO.

[edit] Building

Some of the most recognizable features of the building include the two symmetric white marble main staircases, the water fountain in one of the courtyards, the ornately-decorated assembly hall and its organ and the Colonial-era tunnels that are accessible from the basement, notably from a hidden entrance behind the projection-screen area in the film auditorium.