La Casa de Fierro located in the city of Iquitos

Iquitos

Iquitos is the largest city in the Peruvian rainforest, with a population of 370,962. It is the capital of Loreto Region and Maynas Province.Located on the Amazon River, it is only above sea level, although it is more than from the mouth of the Amazon at Belém on the Atlantic Ocean...

 in the jungle of Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

, in front of the major square between Próspero and Putumayo streets, is a large iron residence built during the rubber boom

Rubber boom

The rubber boom was an important part of the economic and social history of Brazil and Amazonian regions of neighboring countries, being related with the extraction and commercialization of rubber...

 at the end of the nineteenth century.
La Casa de Fierro is one of the finest as well as best-preserved samples of civil architecture in Peru. The walls, ceiling, and balcony are plastered in rectangular sheets of iron. It is said to be the first prefabricated house in the Americas. It was designed by the French architect Gustave Eiffel

Gustave Eiffel

Alexandre Gustave Eiffel was a French structural engineer from the École Centrale Paris, an architect, an entrepreneur and a specialist of metallic structures...

 and built in the Belgian workshops of Les Forges D´Aiseau. Rubber baron Anselmo del Aguila bought it at the International Exposition of Paris

Exposition Universelle (1889)

The Exposition Universelle of 1889 was a World's Fair held in Paris, France from 6 May to 31 October 1889.It was held during the year of the 100th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, an event traditionally considered as the symbol for the beginning of the French Revolution...

 in 1889. Once dismantled, it was brought in pieces to Iquitos (the metal sheets were carried by hundreds of men through the jungle), and assembled there in 1890.

Since 1985, it is being administered by the Club Social de Iquitos; which has contributed in its restoration. Its second floor now has a restaurant.

A fully different story of the origin of the house is told in Mario Vargas Llosa

Mario Vargas Llosa

Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquis of Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian-Spanish writer, politician, journalist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading authors of his generation...

's Captain Pantoja and the Special Service

Captain Pantoja and the Special Service

Captain Pantoja and the Special Service is a relatively short comedic novel by acclaimed Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa....

 (Pantaleón y las visitadoras), a comic novel

Comic novel

A comic novel is a work of fiction in which the writer not only seeks to amuse the reader, but also to make the reader think about controversial issues, sometimes with subtlety and as part of a carefully woven narrative; sometimes, above all other considerations...

.

External links

• Iquitos: following the route of the rubber boom La Casa de fierro d'Iquitos (Pérou): Une oeuvre du "magicien du fer" (Gustave Eiffel) en pleine Amazonie La Casa de Fierro d'Iquitos (Pérou): Gustave Eiffel en pleine Amazonie
• (German) Monsieur Eiffel in the Amazonian Jungle
• Iquitos Times "Any Old Iron?"
• ikitos.com A brief history of the Iron House.