Gran Torre Costanera

Gran Torre Costanera, also called Gran Torre Santiago, is a 300-metre glass skyscraper in Santiago, Chile. It was finished in 2013 and is the tallest building in South America. It rises over Costanera Center, the biggest shopping mall in Latin America.

The tower has 62 floors above ground, and the top is an open steel crown. Its design involved Chilean architects Alemparte Barreda and the Argentine architect César Pelli. It has a total of about 700,000 square metres of floor space and six basement floors. With 64 floors counted from the base plus six basement levels, it is the centrepiece of a complex that planners expected to draw about 240,000 visitors a day.

Building a giant

Construction started in June 2006 and was paused in January 2009 during the global financial crisis. It restarted in December 2009. In 2011 it passed the old record-holder in Caracas to become South America's tallest, and it reached its full 300 metres on 14 February 2012.

Planners expected about 240,000 people to go to and from the complex each day.

Views and size

The Sky Costanera observation deck opened on 11 August 2015 on floors 61 and 62 and gives 360-degree views of Santiago and the Andes.

The tower has nearly 700,000 square metres of space. Wikipedia says it is the tallest building in South America and the second tallest in Latin America, behind a tower in Mexico.

A complex of towers

Gran Torre is part of the Costanera Center, which has the largest shopping mall in Latin America, two hotels and two more office towers. The land covers 47,000 square metres. The design came from several teams: the Chilean architects Alemparte Barreda y Asociados, the Argentine architect César Pelli of Pelli Clarke Pelli and the Canadian company Watt International. The Chilean firm René Lagos y Asociados did the structural engineering, and Salfa Corp built it. Locals simply call it El Costanera.

On the globe

The model shows the tapering glass tower with its open steel-lattice crown. Look at the crown at the very top.