Solar Rietti Foundation

Lezica 3948
Tel. 4982-2615 / 4981-1241
Schedule visits by telephone

This Museum is the result of the work of a visionary, Dr. Ciro Rietti, assistant to Dr. Bernardo Houssay, Nobel Prize winner in the field of Physiology. In the seventies, Dr. Rietti proclaimed that "solar energy is cheap, clean and environmentally harmless ". He has created a solar laboratory in his large old house in the neighborhood of Almagro where visitors can appreciate how, through solar energy, it is possible to obtain hot water, operate an elevator, or hold races with small solar-driven cars for children. Over a decade ago, he created his first solar-driven car which he named Ariel, the same name given by Shakespeare to an airy spirit in "The Tempest". This car which is on exhibition, was driven by Juan Manuel Fangio and Oscar Gálvez, amongst others. President Arturo Illia and the writer Jorge Luis Borges himself took a ride in it too. Photographs of these occasions are also exhibited. The foundation focuses mainly on elementary and high school students to impress on them the importance of using an inexhaustible source of energy within everyone's reach.