PALACIO PORTALES

The current cultural and educational center was built between 1913 and 1922 by the French architect Eugene Bliaut on the orders of Simon Iturri Patiño. Located in the Queru Queru neighborhood, it is without a doubt the most opulent and luxurious residence ever built in Bolivia, with its French and Italian neoclassical influences, stained glass windows, marble staircases and Venetian crystal chandeliers. You can also admire a replica of the Sistine Chapel, French gardens and a contemporary art gallery. Some may think that it is in bad taste to encourage visitors to visit the house of the man who exploited the Bolivian mines for so many years without ever benefiting his country. Let us see what the official history says..

At the end of the 19th century, the world price of silver dropped, and the era of mining of this precious metal diminished to give way to the tin and rubber industries. The Bolivian who benefited most from this boom was none other than Simon Iturri Patiño. Born in 1860 near Oruro, of a Basque father and a Quechua mother, he was offered, at a very young age, the deed to a mountainous land that turned out to contain one of the most precious veins of tin in the world. It didn't take long for the young Patiño to create his own fortune, buying out his competitors, acquiring smelters around the world and founding his own bank. In 1929, he established the International Tin Committee, an organization that operated until 1985 to maintain tin prices. Three years later, he created the Patiño Foundation, which was intended as an educational effort, but was instead aimed at training his own employees to better control them later. During these years, his smelters exploited more than 60% of the world's tin. He built the most powerful industrial and financial empire ever created in Bolivia. It was during the 1940s that he became the richest man in the world. In his book The Prodigies (2009), journalist Malcolm Gladwell explains that Patiño's wealth was equivalent to nearly $8 billion in today's money, ranking him 26th on the list of the wealthiest people of all time, ahead of the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Patiño died in Buenos Aires in 1947 at the age of 86 and was buried in Pairumani, not far from his country home near Cochabamba. The Palacio Portales was never occupied by Simon I Patiño or any member of his illustrious family.