La Plata

Rocha decided to erect a new city to host the provincial government institutions and the planned university. Urban planner Pedro Benoit designed a city layout based on a rationalist conception of urban centers. The city (see figure) has the shape of a square with a central park and two diagonal avenues, north-south and east-west. This design is copied in a self-similar manner in small blocks of six by six blocks in length. Other than the diagonals, all streets are on a rectangular grid, and are numbered consecutively.

The city design and its buildings are known to posses a strong Freemason symbolism. This is no surprise, given that Dardo Rocha and Pedro Benoit were both Masons.

The designs for the government buildings were chosen in an international architectural competition. Thus, the Governor Palace was designed by Italians, City Hall by Germans, etc. Electric street lighting was installed in 1884 (the first in Latin America).

The cathedral of La Plata is the largest church in Argentina.

The La Plata University was founded in 1897 and nationalized in 1905. It is well-known for its observatory and paleontology museum, and for the renowned personalities that came from all of the Spanish-speaking world to teach in it. Ernesto Sabato was a top-ranked graduate in physics who went on to work at the Sorbonne and MIT before becoming a novelist. Doctor René Favaloro was another famous alumnus.

The city was renamed in 1952 as Eva Perón; the original name was restored in 1955.

The city is home to two football (soccer) teams that play in the first division: Estudiantes de La Plata and Gimnasia y Esgrima de La Plata.