Towards the end of the 1970s, the architectural office of Flora Manteola, Javier Sánchez Gómez, Josefina Santos, Justo Solsona and Rafael Viñoly (MSGSSV) together with Carlos Sallaberry began to devise the project for the Prourban Building, which would become one of the most emblematic buildings in the city of Buenos Aires and would be popularly nicknamed "El Rulero".
Located on the northern end of Av. 9 de Julio, on the corner of Av. Del Libertador and Carlos Pellegrini, this free-perimeter office building stands out for its cylindrical and solid morphology, and rises with its circular floor plan and its openwork tube structure crowning the extension of the iconic Avenida 9 de Julio.
Memory of the authors. The tower, located at the crossroads of two avenues leading into the city and completely isolated from the surrounding buildings, stands like a landmark, and its cylindrical shape contributes to this.
Structure and enclosure are unified in a single material, reinforced concrete, which becomes a structural sheet enclosing the building. The windows that protrude slightly are attached to it, so that the enclosure does not lose its laminar condition. This sheet is subtly worked into the plan.
A grid is drawn in the concrete by means of a slightly recessed wedge, marking the office module. The square, slightly protruding windows are centred on it, which, when highlighted, take on a symbolic and representative character.
It is paradoxical that what makes it easier to understand the cultural value of these towers is the fact that they belong to such a narrowly defined organisational and formal typology. The origin of their special "significant force" is to be found at first in their design process. When designing these buildings, one has the permanent feeling of working in a "special case". Not only because a relatively specific technology is involved, but also because in this process the usual sequence of stages is transformed into a less particular design task. - Mario Gandelsonas
The particular characteristic of those windows with grey mirrored glass repeated uniformly and almost infinitely, is that they intermittently reflect the changing light of the sky and the city, multiplying the reflections that vary with different degrees of brightness in each row of windows and at each time of day. The result is an unprecedented kaleidoscopic image of a building whose more than 50% of its façade is made of exposed concrete.
From a distance, the cylinder is inserted into the Skyline, highlighting its shape and its reflections in the background provided by the city. It acquires the strength of a compact solid, moulded by the shadow of its volume, and in it we can read, as in a monumental monochromatic scale, the different shades of grey and silver that are produced. Concrete and glass lose their material condition through the effect of light, shadows and reflections.
In these projects, the central theme consisted in thinking of the volume of the tower shaft as "a unit capable of containing others" (a box that was empty). This idea derives (and at the same time is constructed with it) from the incorporation into the typological model of the tower of an element that accentuates, by connotation, the metaphor of the "container box": a void. We have treated this void as an "interior space" in the UIA, as an "interstice" in the CGE and as a virtually "limited" space in the IBM. In all three cases, this elementary image of the box is obtained with the disappearance of the mezzanine in the façade as the only sign of its structuring by the aggregate of several units. This resource annuls the modular base that traditionally supports the treatment of tower façades. - Mario Gandelsonas
The volume of the tower is inserted into the inclined plane at ground level and below this plane is the car park. On the ground floor, a large portico 10 metres high marks the entrance and is accentuated by a marble cladding which is inserted into the plane of the enclosure.
Technical specifications
Architecture: MSGSSV / Manteola, Sánchez Gómez, Santos, Solsona, Viñoly
Project: Flora Manteola, Javier Sánchez Gómez, Josefina Santos, Justo Solsona, Rafael Viñoly
Associate: Carlos Sallaberry
Location: Av. del Libertador y Carlos Pellegrini, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Project: 1976-1977
Finalised: 1982
Developer: Creaurban
Contractor: Eugenio Grasetto S.A. / SIDECO Americana S.A.
Built surface area: 31,400 m2 (21,000m2 of offices + 10,000m2 of car park)
Ground floor surface area: 750 m2
Height: 28 floors
