Plaza
Plaza Building
The Plaza building, built in 1961, is located on La Torre Street, on the Puente Libertad sector. Located in the heart of the community center, its socio-historical value lies precisely in the fact that it is an indisputable point of reference for people walking by, which allows it to become an essential part of the city. From its origin, the tower was designed for a double function, residential and commercial. Composed of 11 floors and 32 residential units in the height, although many of them are currently used as offices. The building concentrates an important diversity of commerce at its feet. The building distances itself from the main road and is characterized by its double edge location: on one side with the southern area of the Marga-Marga estuary and on the other the main axis of Viña del Mar downtown-Libertad urban continuity, which becomes a transitional point of the city, separated by the estuary, next to the O’Higgins Hotel. The wide sidewalk in the original design shows that it is a building designed for dual use.
Specifications
- TYPE
Residential | Commercial | Offices
- ARCHITECTS
Roberto de Ferrari
Jaime Sanfuentes
Gustavo Krefft
- BUILDER
Empresa de los ingenieros Civiles Neut Latour y Compañía Limitada.
- YEAR
1961
Its construction, structured in a tower with two different facades, is a characteristic feature of the building. On the one hand, to the south, it has balconies with transparent railings, a characteristic that is lost on its eastern face, where only the glazed facade remains, which is harmonized with strips of yellow parapet. The design of the construction of each facade is intended to enhance the use of light on the ground floors and in the east-west directions.
In the interior architectural design, a contemporary wooden screen stands out. The elevator hall for internal communication is illuminated by means of a stairwell fed by a window that extends from the floor to the ceiling of the building. On the upper floors, natural light marks a special feature, however, in the corridors that give access to the departments, it presents a greater darkness attenuated by the light that enters perpendicularly due to its double surgery design.
As for its interior intervention, the building presents an austere proposal. An important part of the internal decoration of the building has been intervened or replaced, however, in some apartment doors the use of bronze is maintained, both in their numbers and in door handles. The handrails of the stairs combine the use of iron and bronze finishing touches.
The use of natural light that passes through the lattice work from the west stands out, illuminating the stair box. Marked by the use of materials characteristic of modern architecture, currently and as a result of multiple interventions, the originals have been lost, being replaced by new and contemporary materials. In its internal aesthetics, the use of irregular marble stones stands out and on the upper floors hydraulic tiles for the floors covered with bronze applications in the joints.
The stairs maintain the use of granite (as in most of the buildings of this period). Towards the west, a double facade whose first membrane is made of hollow blocks that let light through and allow ventilation of a completely glazed interior membrane in the case of the facade of the stairwell and elevator hall and of fenestrations that ventilate and illuminate service programs. All this on a plate that acts as a plinth, whose façade expression is continuous on the second floor, originally glazed and currently covered by a perforated metal cladding.
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