Argentina’s El Ateneo bookstore has just celebrated its hundredth year of trade. Even if you’ve never stepped foot in the legendary librería on Buenos Aires’s Avenida Santa Fé, you’ve probably seen pictures:

El Ateneo has four other bookstore branches across Buenos Aires, and the main branch has only been in this converted-theatre location since 2000, but it’s since that time that it’s become not just a local but an international icon. The firm was founded in 1912 by Pablo García, a Spanish immigrant, and is now half as old as the country itself. From its foundation it was a publisher as well as a bookstore, and it’s been a vital cultural force, bringing to readers books banned in Spain during Franco‘s rule, and medical books to advance the cause of public health.

There’s no Argentine branch of Amazon (yet), and the uptake of ebooks in the country remains relatively low. Both of these factors help an institution like El Ateneo to continue to flourish, though Argentine bookstores have faced their own challenges, including the prohibitive cost of imported books from Spain (and the defection of many Argentine authors to Spanish publishing houses), and, more recently, restrictions on the importation of books. Here’s to El Ateneo for weathering the various storms in such style.