Casa de las Academias, Art Nouveau building in San Salvador, El Salvador
Casa de las Academias, also called Casa Dueñas, stands at the corner of 9.ª Avenida Norte and Alameda Juan Pablo II in San Salvador. The architect Daniel Cristóbal Domínguez Párraga, a graduate of the Colegio Militar de Chapultepec in Mexico, built it in 1919–1920 with wood, iron and glass imported from France in the Modernista manner. It was a wedding gift from Miguel Palomo to his daughter Eugenia.
Miguel Palomo gave the house to his daughter Eugenia Palomo as a wedding gift after the 1917 earthquakes destroyed the family home in central San Salvador. It was built between 1919 and 1920 near Villa Dueñas, and after Eugenia's fiancé died it stood empty until Mexico's embassy used it from 1930 to 1933 and the United States legation from 1935 to 1957.
The house takes its name from the two institutions that occupied it from 2004: the Academia Salvadoreña de la Lengua, which received the building on a 50-year loan in November 2001, and the Academia Salvadoreña de la Historia. In March 2025 the Legislative Assembly revoked that loan by Decree 246 so the Ministry of Culture could take over the structurally damaged building.
The building is located in central San Salvador and accessible by public transportation. Visitors should check in advance whether tours or public access are available, as it remains an active institutional building.
Between 1935 and 1957 the US legation occupied the house, and its guest list included presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon, senator Robert Kennedy and actors Clark Gable, Tyrone Power and Tony Curtis. Before that, the Mexican embassy used it from 1930 to 1933.
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