The University of Buenos Aires began imparting courses on engineering as early as 1865, when Rector Juan María Gutiérrez ordered the re-establishment of the Department of Exact Sciences, which saw courses on "pure and applied mathematics", as well as natural history. By 1866, the department counted with thirteen enrolled students: Valentín Balbín, Santiago Brian, Adolfo Büttner, Jorge Coquet, Luis A. Huergo, Francisco Lavalle, Carlos Olivera, Matías Sánchez, Luis Silveyra, Miguel Sorondo, Zacarías Tapia, Guillermo Villanueva and Guillermo White. The first of them to graduate from the university was
Luis Huergo, who graduated as an "Engineer of the School of this University in the Faculty of Exact Sciences". The first woman to graduate with an engineering degree from the university was
Elisa Bachofen, who became the first woman to graduate as an engineer in Argentina and in Latin America in 1918. The first pensum of the degree counted with 18 mandatory subjects, of which 30% were linked to technical drawing and 30% to mathematics. Only two of these subjects were related to construction, while an additional two were on geology and mineralogy. In addition, engineers were expected to be educated in
surveying. A national decree in 1952 officially established the Faculty of Engineering as an autonomous faculty within the university. The faculty had its seat at the
Illuminated Block, on Perú 222, up until it was relocated to a Neo-Gothic building on Las Heras Av. in the
Recoleta barrio in 1948. The former headquarters of the
Eva Perón Foundation, on Av. Paseo Colón 850, was additionally granted to the faculty in 1956, in the aftermath of the
1955 coup d'état. The ten six-meter high statues on the roof of the headquarters, representing the "
descamisados", were designed and sculpted from
Carrara marble by the Italian sculptor
Leone Tommasi and installed in 1950. In 1955, after the coup d'état, the statues were removed and thrown into the
Matanza River, from where, in 1996, by order of President
Carlos Menem, only three were found and were retrieved. The three statues can currently be seen in
San Vicente where
Juan Perón is buried. ==Degrees==