Casa de Fierro

The Casa de Fierro is a two-storey structure of bolted iron sheets and columns on the corner of the Iquitos main square, brought in sections from Europe around 1890 by a rubber baron and assembled here. It is habitually described as designed by Gustave Eiffel and exhibited at the 1889 Paris exposition; that attribution is not documented, and it is more likely a prefabricated building from one of the several European foundries producing them at the time - a claim repeated so often locally that it has become part of the building's identity. Either way it is a real artefact of the rubber boom, when Iquitos, a thousand kilometres up the Amazon with no road to the rest of Peru, imported Portuguese tiles, European ironwork and grand pianos on the profits of latex extracted through forced indigenous labour. The ground floor now houses commercial premises.

What you actually see

• The iron structure - bolted sheets and columns shipped in pieces and assembled.
• The rubber-boom context - European materials brought a thousand kilometres upriver.
• The Eiffel claim - widely repeated locally and not supported by documentation.
• The square - the building on the corner of the Iquitos Plaza de Armas.

When to go

Year-round; Iquitos is hot and humid always. Twenty to forty minutes. The upper floor's accessibility depends on the current tenant.

Honest expectations

It is a commercial building, not a museum - what you can see inside depends on the businesses occupying it. The Eiffel attribution is repeated as fact by guides and is doubtful. Small, and quickly seen from the street.

Nearby

The Malecón Tarapacá is a short walk; Belén market is south along the river.