Landmark South America
Gran Torre Costanera
Gran Torre Costanera is a very tall glass skyscraper in Santiago, Chile. It is the tallest building in South America!
Gran Torre Costanera, also called Gran Torre Santiago, is a 300-meter skyscraper in Santiago, the capital of Chile. Designed by the architects Pelli Clarke Pelli and completed in 2014, it is ranked the tallest building in South America.
Gran Torre Costanera (official name Torre Costanera; its architects call it Gran Torre Santiago) rises 300 m above the Providencia area of Santiago, at the heart of the city's financial district. Proposed in 2005, begun in 2006 and completed in 2014, it has 62 floors above ground, and the Skyscraper Center database ranks it the tallest building in South America.
Photo: Gonzalo Baeza H, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Discover Gran Torre Costanera
Gran Torre Costanera is a skyscraper: a very, very tall building.
It stands in Santiago, the capital city of Chile.
Gran Torre Costanera is a skyscraper in Santiago, the capital of Chile. It stands in the Providencia area, at the heart of the city's financial district, close to the Mapocho River.
It is 300 meters tall. The Skyscraper Center, a database of the world's tall buildings, ranks it the tallest building in South America.
The Skyscraper Center database lists the tower's official name as Torre Costanera, with Gran Torre Costanera as another name, and lists Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects as the design architects; on their own site, Pelli Clarke & Partners call it Gran Torre Santiago. The architects place it in Providencia, anchoring the Costanera Center complex at the heart of Santiago's financial district, beside the Mapocho River.
The database gives an architectural height of 300 m, the same as the height to its tip, and ranks it first in Santiago, in Chile and in South America, and 247th in the world.
- Where
- Providencia, Santiago, Chile
- Height
- 300 m
- Completed
- 2014
- Design architects
- Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects
From plan to skyline
People planned this tower in 2005.
Building it took years. It was finished in 2014.
The tower was proposed in 2005, and construction started in 2006. It was completed in 2014, eight years after building began.
The architects say the tower anchors the Costanera Center complex and reflects the energy of Chile's growing economy. They also say its structure was designed to protect it from earthquakes, in a region known for them. At 300 meters, it is ranked the tallest building in South America today.
The Skyscraper Center gives the tower's schedule as proposed in 2005, construction start in 2006 and completion in 2014; Pelli Clarke & Partners also give 2014 as its completion. The tower's client, owner and developer is Cencosud.
Both sources give the tower about 110,000 square meters of floor space. The architects write that the tower reflects 'the energy of the country's growing economy and Santiago's historic cityscape'.
Glass walls and a glowing crown
The tower's walls are made of glass.
It gets thinner as it goes up, and its top glows softly at night!
The architects describe the tower as a modern obelisk made of glass walls. Each wall folds slightly down its middle, making a ridge that runs up to the top. As the walls rise they get narrower and pull apart at the corners, ending in a latticed crown that glows softly at night.
The Skyscraper Center says its main frame is all steel.
Pelli Clarke & Partners call the design 'a modern expression of the obelisk form composed by faceted glass walls': each wall folds at its centerline into a ridge, the walls taper and pull apart at the corners, and they end in a latticed crown that glows at night. The architects add that its structural system was designed to protect it in a region known for earthquakes, and that the tower is cooled with water from the nearby San Carlos Canal and rated LEED Gold, a green-building standard.
The Skyscraper Center records an all-steel structure, 62 floors above ground and 6 below, and 26 elevators with a top speed of 6.6 meters per second.
High above the city
Look how the tower rises far above all the other buildings!
It is wide at the bottom and narrow at the top.
In this photo, the tower rises far above every other building in sight. Its blue-gray sides get narrower toward the top.
To the left stand other tall buildings, and in front are trees and low buildings. Hazy mountains rise behind the city.
The architects say the tower is surrounded by the Andes Mountains, and that its glass walls fold slightly down the middle of each side.
The photo shows the tower's tapering shaft standing well clear of the skyline around it, up to its top. A rounded tower and other high-rises stand to the left, a band of low buildings and trees fills the foreground, and hazy mountains rise behind under a pale sky.
The architects write that the tower is surrounded by the Andes Mountains, and quote Cesar Pelli: 'No human-built form can compete with the power of these mountains.'
- Floors
- 62 above ground, 6 below
- Observatory
- 261 m above the entrance
- Elevators
- 26
- Ranking
- Tallest building in South America
A view over Santiago
This photo looks over Santiago from high up.
Today visitors can look out from near the top of the tower!
This photo was taken in April 2013, before the tower was completed in 2014. Wikimedia Commons files it among views from Santiago's Metropolitan Park (Parque Metropolitano).
Today the tower has a public observatory on its upper floors, with views over Santiago and the mountains around it. The Skyscraper Center puts the observatory 261 meters above the entrance, close to the top of the 300-meter tower.
The photo by Gonzalo Baeza H, dated 7 April 2013 on its file page, is filed among Commons' views from the Parque Metropolitano de Santiago (a category another Commons user gave it in 2013; the photographer's caption says only 'view of the financial center of Santiago'); it was taken the year before the Skyscraper Center's completion date of 2014.
The architects describe a public observatory on the upper floors with panoramic views of Santiago and the surrounding mountains; the Skyscraper Center puts the observatory 261 m above the entrance.
Amazing facts
-
This is the tallest building in all of South America!
At 300 meters, Gran Torre Costanera is ranked the tallest building in South America and in Chile.
The Skyscraper Center ranks the tower first in Santiago, in Chile and in South America, and 247th tallest in the world.
-
Its fastest elevators zoom up very fast!
Its fastest elevators can travel at 6.6 meters per second, which is about 24 kilometers an hour.
The tower's 26 elevators have a top speed of 6.6 m/s (about 24 km/h), according to the Skyscraper Center.
-
Water from a canal helps keep the tower cool!
The architects say the tower is cooled naturally with water from the nearby San Carlos Canal.
Pelli Clarke & Partners list natural cooling with water from the San Carlos Canal among the tower's sustainability features; the tower is rated LEED Gold.
Words to know
- skyscraper
- a very tall building with many floors
- architect
- a person who designs buildings
- obelisk
- a tall, narrow, four-sided shape that gets thinner toward the top
- observatory
- a high place built for looking out at the view
- skyline
- the outline of a city's buildings against the sky
Discovery challenge
-
In which city is this tower?
In which city does Gran Torre Costanera stand?
Gran Torre Costanera stands in the Providencia area of which capital city?
- Santiago
- Lima
- Buenos Aires
Show the answer
Santiago
Santiago, in Chile!
Santiago, the capital of Chile.
Santiago.
-
How tall is the tower?
How tall is Gran Torre Costanera?
What architectural height does the Skyscraper Center give for the tower?
- 300 meters
- 30 meters
- 3,000 meters
Show the answer
300 meters
300 meters!
300 meters.
300 m, the same as its height to the tip.
-
What are the tower's walls made of?
What are the tower's folded outer walls made of?
What material forms the faceted walls the architects describe?
- Glass
- Wood
- Brick
Show the answer
Glass
Glass!
Glass.
Glass, folded at each wall's centerline into a ridge.
-
This is the tallest building on which continent?
Gran Torre Costanera is ranked the tallest building on which continent?
The Skyscraper Center ranks the tower first on which continent?
- South America
- Europe
- Africa
Show the answer
South America
South America!
South America.
South America (and 247th in the world).
Nearby places
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City
Santiago
Santiago, the capital and largest city of Chile, lies in a basin in central Chile with the high Andes to the east. Founded by the Spanish in 1541, it mixes colonial churches with the tallest skyscraper in the city, the 300-meter Gran Torre Costanera. About 5.25 million people lived in the city in 2017.
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Aconcagua
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Valparaíso
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Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory
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Santiago
Santiago, the capital and largest city of Chile, lies in a basin in central Chile with the high Andes to the east. Founded by the Spanish in 1541, it mixes colonial churches with the tallest skyscraper in the city, the 300-meter Gran Torre Costanera. About 5.25 million people lived in the city in 2017.
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Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory
The Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory is a group of telescopes on a mountain in Chile, 2,200 meters above sea level. It operates the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope. The first observations were made in 1965, and in all the mountain holds around 40 telescopes.
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For parents & teachers
What children will learn
- Describe where Gran Torre Costanera stands and how tall it is.
- Explain how a skyscraper's shape can change as it rises (tapering, folded walls, a crown).
- Read a building's key numbers: height, floors, elevators and years of building.
Recommended ages: 4 to 17 · About 15 minutes
Talk about it
- Why might a very tall building get narrower toward the top?
- The architect said no building can compete with the mountains. What do you think he meant?
- Why do you think it took eight years to build such a tall tower?
Try at home or in class
- Build the tallest tower you can from paper cups or blocks, then try making it narrower at the top.
- Measure how many of your steps make 300 meters on a long path or a sports field.
Key vocabulary: skyscraper, architect, obelisk, observatory, skyline
Where these facts come from
- Wikidata , Wikimedia Foundation (CC0 1.0)
- Torre Costanera , The Skyscraper Center
- Gran Torre Santiago , Pelli Clarke & Partners
- File:Vista Parcial de Santiago de Chile 2013.jpg , Wikimedia Commons
- Wikimedia Commons , Wikimedia Foundation (Per file (public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA); see each media record)
Checked, not yet human-reviewed. Last updated November 1, 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.