El Faro Towers

The El Faro Towers (Spanish: Torres El Faro) is a complex of two, twin interconnected towers located in the neighbourhood of Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Structure

They have a total height of 160 m (520 ft) and an area of 57,190 m² (615,600 sq ft). The development houses 160 apartments, outdoor pool, spa, sauna, gym, two underground parking structures for owners and guests, and other ancillary facilities.

Concept and construction

The Lighthouse (Faro) project was first proposed in 1999, and coincided with a burgeoning interest in redeveloping the dilapidated Puerto Madero docklands on the part of developers. The project was initially designed to include two towers of 170 meters (590 ft) each, with 48 floors distributed among them. The towers were to be connected by several aerial bridges at four levels. The development was approved in late 2000, and the construction of Tower 1 began in 2001.

Tower 1 was completed construction in 2003, and all units therein were sold by the time work started on tower two. While there were several alternative proposals from groups dedicated to the protection of the nearby Buenos Aires Ecological Reserve, objections were also raised over the prior substitution of Act 123 for Act 452, which would have permitted a lesser degree of environmental impact for the project's approval. Tower 2 was completed in early 2005 and promptly sold out, thus concluding the project. These became the highest in Buenos Aires and Argentina, though the structures were narrowly surpassed in height by the nearby Mulieris towers and the Repsol-YPF tower (both in Puerto Madero) upon these latter's compilation in 2008 (they were, in turn, surpassed by Torre Cavia, part of the Le Parc Figueroa Alcorta complex, in 2009).

Façade and engineering was provided by Obras Metálicas S. A.