Panunzi, Benito

Benito Panunzi was an Italian photographer, engineer, and architect who worked in Argentina. He was born in Italy and arrived in Argentina in 1861. He was trained in Fine Arts, Engineering, and Architecture. Starting in 1867, he began selling his photographic views of Buenos Aires and genre scenes. Unlike other photographers, Panunzi never advertised in newspapers. He is considered one of the first photographic documentarians, as in 1868 he sold his images in an album format called Album Panunzi, which he sold in installments and distributed in envelopes. His photographs stood out for documenting the urban landscape of the growing city, highlighting and showing a before and after, capturing the era of the industrial revolution in his albumen prints. From 1870 onwards, he dedicated himself exclusively to architecture. He was one of the founders of the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts of Buenos Aires in 1876. In 1879, together with architect Emilio Lombardo, he designed the current building of the Basilica of San José de Flores, perhaps his magnum opus. He died in 1894 in Buenos Aires.