Banco de Londres y América del Sur, Brutalist bank building in San Nicolás district, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The Banco de Londres y América del Sur is an eight-story bank building with three underground levels in San Nicolás. The rectangular concrete structure features suspended elements, geometric patterns, and open spaces that connect the interior to surrounding streets.
The building resulted from a design competition in 1959, which architects Clorindo Testa and SEPRA won and completed in 1966. It was built as the headquarters for the Bank of London and helped define modern architecture in Buenos Aires.
The building shows how Argentina embraced Brutalist ideas, using raw concrete and exposed structural elements as design features rather than hiding them. It represents a time when modern architecture broke with tradition and created new forms of beauty.
The building is visible from the street and located on a main avenue in San Nicolás, making it easy to find and view from outside. The architectural details are best seen during daytime when natural light highlights the concrete surfaces and structural elements.
Steel tie rods hidden within support the main hall, while perimeter columns serve two functions at once: structural support and sun protection. This thoughtful design merges engineering necessity with practical comfort for daily use.
Location: Buenos Aires
Inception: 1966
Architects: SEPRA
Architectural style: brutalism
Floors above the ground: 8
GPS coordinates: -34.60647,-58.37203
Latest update: December 6, 2025 16:03
Brutalist architecture emerged in the decades following World War II, producing buildings that challenged conventional design through their honest expression of materials and function. From Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation in Marseille to Louis Kahn's National Assembly in Dhaka, these structures define a global movement that prioritized raw concrete, bold geometric forms and exposed construction elements. The style reached across continents, shaping university libraries in Chicago, government buildings in Boston and Chandigarh, residential towers in London, and cultural centers in São Paulo. Each building reflects the architectural philosophy of its time, when architects sought to create functional spaces through direct expression of structure and material. This collection documents examples from Europe, Asia, North and South America, representing the full range of building types that defined the movement. You'll find administrative complexes that house parliaments and municipal offices, educational facilities serving major universities, residential towers providing urban housing, and cultural institutions including museums and theaters. The structures share common characteristics—concrete left exposed to show its texture and formwork patterns, geometric compositions that emphasize mass and volume, and architectural elements that reveal rather than conceal how buildings stand and function. These sites offer insight into a period when architects reimagined how modern cities could be built and how public spaces could serve their communities.
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