Edificio Alas
Rising 141 metres above Avenida Leandro N. Alem, Edificio Alas was Buenos Aires’s tallest building from its completion in 1957 until 1994. This monumental Art Deco tower — originally conceived as the headquarters of a Peronist workers’ federation and later seized by the Argentine Air Force — commands the city’s northern skyline with 42 floors of geometric masonry, an enduring symbol of mid-century ambition on the Río de la Plata.
At a glance
- Type
- Office and Residential Tower
- Period
- 1951–1957
- Style
- Art Deco
- Location
- Av. Leandro N. Alem 719/731, San Nicolás, Buenos Aires
- Coordinates
- 34.5992° S, 58.3706° W
- Architect(s)
- Unknown (commissioned by ATLAS / Agrupación de Trabajadores Latinoamericanos Sindicalizados)
Overview
Edificio Alas stands on Avenida Leandro N. Alem in the San Nicolás barrio, part of a dramatic run of mid-century towers that define the eastern edge of Buenos Aires’s central business district. At 141 metres and 42 floors, it held the title of Buenos Aires’s tallest building for 37 years, finally surpassed in 1994 by Torre Le Parc. Today it ranks as the twentieth tallest structure in Argentina. The building combines residential apartments with office space and retains traces of its original self-contained community — it once housed its own supply store and commercial units on the lower floors.
History
The building’s origins lie in the Peronist labour movement. It was conceived as the headquarters of ATLAS — Agrupación de Trabajadores Latinoamericanos Sindicalizados S.A. — a federation of Latin American trade unions whose president was Carlos Aloé, a senior official in Juan Domingo Perón’s government. Construction began in 1951 but the project was overtaken by political upheaval: after the Revolución Libertadora ousted Perón in 1955, the half-finished building was expropriated by the state and handed to the Argentine Air Force (Fuerza Aérea Argentina). The Air Force completed it in 1957, renamed it “ALAS” (Spanish for wings), and converted it into housing for military personnel of various ranks. Between 1957 and 1978 the building’s lower floors housed the television studios of Canal 7, Argentina’s state broadcaster, adding a further layer of cultural significance to its already turbulent history.
Architecture & Design
Edificio Alas represents the monumental strain of South American Art Deco: a tower whose sheer mass and vertical thrust take precedence over delicate surface ornament. The facade is articulated by strong vertical piers that rise the full height of the building, grouped at the centre and corners to emphasise the upward impulse. Set-backs at the upper levels create a stepped silhouette that recalls the Beaux-Arts skyscrapers of 1920s New York while remaining firmly within the Art Deco vocabulary. The reinforced-concrete frame is clad in light-coloured stone, and the main entrance on Avenida Leandro N. Alem features geometric bas-relief panels characteristic of the style. With a total floor area of 99,000 square metres and nine apartments per floor in the central block, the building’s scale was unprecedented for Buenos Aires at the time of its construction.
Cultural significance
Edificio Alas encodes the contradictions of mid-twentieth-century Argentine history within a single vertical frame. Begun as a monument to Peronist labour internationalism and completed as Air Force housing, it shifted meaning without changing form. For nearly four decades its silhouette defined what “modern Buenos Aires” looked like from the Río de la Plata and from aerial photographs. The Avenida Leandro N. Alem corridor where it stands — alongside the nearby Edificio Comega — constitutes one of the most coherent ensembles of monumental Art Deco urbanism in South America, a resource increasingly recognised by architectural historians.
Visiting today
Edificio Alas is a functioning residential and office building owned by the Argentine Air Force and is not open for public tours. The building’s exterior and the impressive entrance facade on Avenida Leandro N. Alem can be viewed and photographed freely from the street. The surrounding Leandro N. Alem corridor offers some of Buenos Aires’s finest streetscape Art Deco architecture and is best explored on foot. Nearby landmarks include Edificio Comega and the Puerto Madero waterfront district.
Getting there
Edificio Alas stands at Avenida Leandro N. Alem 719/731 in San Nicolás. The closest Subte station is Leandro N. Alem on Line B, a one-minute walk from the building’s front entrance. Corrientes Avenue and Florida Street are within a short walking distance. Numerous colectivo bus lines serve the area, and taxis and ride-share vehicles are plentiful along Leandro N. Alem at all hours.
Sources & resources
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