SANTIAGO DE CHILE HAS THE TALLEST BUILDING IN SOUTH AMERICA
The skyline of Chile's capital has been altered over the past year by a skyscraper -- the tallest in South America and one so towering it casts a shadow more than a mile long.
The 70-story Gran Torre Costanera Center, a giant that dwarfs the city's other skyscrapers, overwhelms the view of a city founded in 1541 by Spanish conquistadors and that remains proud of its colonial-era buildings.
The Gran Torre is located in the heart of Santiago's financial district, and known locally as Sanhattan.' It was designed by Cesar Pelli, the Argentine architect who also designed the 1,483-foot tall Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur.
Taller than even some of the Andean hills surrounding Santiago, the Torre is now a universal point of reference in this city of six million people.
The 984-foot tall Gran Torre is not as tall as New York's iconic Empire State Building (1250 feet) and is less than half the size of the world's tallest building, Dubai's Burj Khalifa (2,717 feet). But it is significantly taller than the other regional giant, the Trump Ocean Club in Panama City (961 feet).
A six-floor shopping mall has also risen next to the Gran Torre, and three other skyscrapers -two high-end hotels and an office building- are going up nearby.
The Gran Torre was built to withstand earthquakes -- Chile, located on the Pacific Ring of Fire, is especially prone to powerful quakes. The building came through with flying colors in February 2010, surviving the 8.8 magnitude quake that devastated much of south-central Chile with no structural damage.
The builders praise their structure as "the most imposing commercial and architectural landmark in Santiago" and "emblematic of Chile's commercial development."
Residents and city planners complain that people going to and from the complex will generate massive traffic jams and gridlock in an already tightly-packed city.
Once the edifice is completed, there will be nearly 700,000 square meters of building space available built on 47,000 square meters of land. Planners estimate there will be some 240,000 people going to and from the site each day.
"We're talking about five percent of the city circulating within a few square kilometers," complained architect and urban planner Julio Hurtado.
"The long-term consequences of this chaos it will be a topic for experts to study," Hurtado told.
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ResponderEliminarI have never heard about this building, i think this project was too difficult to make because of the earthquakes. Visiting this building would be an excellent experience, maybe on the future I will do it.
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