The result is the magnificent Palace of Running Waters.
The block-square building is a High Victorian Italianate style hulk crowned by a French Second Empire mansard roof, all designed by a Norwegian architect and built by a British engineering firm.
The fašade is a catalogue of architectural terra cotta, with over 300,000 pieces created by the same company that later supplied china to the British crown, Royal Doulton. As a sculptor in clay, Barbara was amazed at the size of the terra cotta pieces, and the skill that it must have taken to fire them.
Inside there is a museum, and if you stand quietly and listen carefully, you can actually hear the water running in the walls.
In 1871 and again in 1879, Buenos Aires suffered outbreaks of Yellow Fever. Fortunately, the city was on the on the cusp of its golden era. The Federal government allocated 5,000,000 pesos for a sanitation system to deliver running water to the city to replace the cisterns that bred the mosquitoes carrying the Yellow Fever. To impress the public with the importance of sanitation, the government allocated over 40% of this budget for an impressive building to house the water storage tank.