Torre Dorrego, the Brutalist tower of Buenos Aires
Torre Dorrego
Alfredo Joselevich, Alberto Víctor Ricur, Luis T. Caffarini
Buenos Aires, Argentina
34°34′ 29″S 58°25’58″W
1971
The Torre Dorrego is a residential building in the Palermo district of Buenos Aires. Its brutalist semicircular architecture, which follows the path of the sun, and its monumental scale make it a unique project in Argentina and on the South American continent.
A tower project to break free from the ground
The Torre Dorrego project is first and foremost a cooperative project. The Cooperativa de Vivienda, Crédito y Consumo Limitada Casa Propia, Ahorro, y Bienestar (CAPAYBI) called for a competition with the initial aim of housing its members of the Fuerzas Armadas (armed forces). In fact, the site chosen was located not far from a garrison in the Las Canitas district in northeast Palermo. This proved to be the main technical problem for this monumental tower project, which was unprecedented in Argentina at the time.
In fact, the water table lies just below the second basement level. At the time the building was planned, it had been less than 100 years since the old shoreline of the Rio de la Plata had been pushed out of the district. The Maldonado river, which ran through the city to the Rio, had been channelled underground just a few decades earlier. The very name of the district, Las Cañitas, comes from the cañaveral (cane wet fields) located on the damp banks. However, this relationship with water was totally forgotten during the city’s growing urbanization. Eliminating this relationship was also a way of burying the problems associated with watercourses, both in terms of flooding and sanitation.
The Dorrego Tower project was therefore already constrained by the instability of the ground, and the ambition of a tower was necessarily subject to extraordinary technical know-how.
Monumentality at the service of equity
The winning project was by architects Caffarini, Joselevich and Ricur. Joselevich had contributed to the modernization of the city center some thirty years earlier with the construction of the Comega (1933), the city’s first large-scale reinforced concrete building.
They chose an audacious shape, the half-circle, to guarantee the same quality of life for the tower’s inhabitants, whatever the size of the dwellings. In fact, these two rings (one inside and one outside) allow spaces to be distributed according to views of the city and exposure to the sun. The concave shape of the rounded facade follows the path of the sun during the day. On this north-east facade, the bedrooms and living areas were arranged. On the other side, on the second inner ring, the convex shape concentrated the service areas, accesses, stairs and elevators, as well as the kitchen. This spatial distribution also optimizes circulation within the apartments. Equal sunlight in all apartments is accompanied by privileged views over the Parque 3 de febrero and los Bosques de palermo, the district’s green lung, as well as the Rio de la Plata on the other side.
A brutalist concrete building
Construction of the project took place between 1969 and 1972. To ensure the structural stability of the 240-unit tower, the engineers designed a reinforced concrete structure, maintaining a unified facade over the 31 storeys. Given the low bearing capacity of the soil, a Roman well foundation system was used, requiring 1500m3 of concrete. The concentration of the building on just 25% of the available land also ensured rapid construction. Each level of around 1000m2 could be completed in 10 days. The rationalization of the construction system and the decision to leave the concrete façade brut, simply supported by metal elements, ensured structural efficiency and rapid completion.
The outer ring is lined with precast concrete elements, giving rhythm and depth to the facade. This visual dynamism is accentuated by the convex shape, underlining the phenomenon of duplication.
At the time of its completion, the Torre Dorrego towered at 102m (for 32 levels). Today, an antenna has been installed at the top, adding several dozen metres. Its massive structure, visible from the facade, and its monumental scale, overlooking the urban landscape, make it the only building of its kind in the city. Its raw concrete, often disparaged by local residents, makes it a unique example of Brutalist housing architecture in Argentina’s capital and South America.
