In the heart of Balvanera, on Perón Street, stands a building with a beautiful façade, but which contains much more than architectural beauty, because it is almost a construction taken from another world. We tell you all about the Buenos Aires building inspired in Ancient Egypt with hieroglyphics that hides in plain sight meters away from Plaza Once.
The Buenos Aires building with hieroglyphics inspired in ancient Egypt that you didn’t know existed in Balvanera.
The building with details that transport you to Ancient Egypt that is in Balvanera, between stores, bus stops and merchandise on the sidewalk is the Saint Tower, a building with copper domes, carved hieroglyphs. A true architectural treasure that surprises anyone who passes by Once without knowing that a jewel of the heritage of the City of Buenos Aires is waiting for them right there. We tell you its history
The Saint Tower was built between 1925 and 1928 by order of the businessman Emilio Saint, owner of the famous Águila chocolates. His original idea was to erect an apartment building for rent, but he ended up creating a monumental work that still attracts attention today for its unique and imposing aesthetics on 2600 Perón Street.
The Saint Tower has 70-meter high oxidized copper domes that evoke the shape of the Waldorf Astoria building in New York and inside is a building with impeccable finishes, marble, wood, everything inside refers to an era of great construction and beauty in the city of Buenos Aires. It is one of the few buildings of this style that survive in a neighborhood as commercial as Once, but this is not its main attraction.
A 1920’s jewel in Buenos Aires that looks like Art Deco but is not.
What makes this building stand out are its details, since on its façade you will see columns, winged figures and even Egyptian hieroglyphics.Do you know of another building in Buenos Aires with Egyptian hieroglyphics? It is unique because it breaks with the most classic architectural canons of Buenos Aires and is a direct nod to the worldwide fascination that arose in 1922 with Egypt, with the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamen. Although many confuse it with Art Deco, the truth is that this building with its hieroglyphics predates Art Deco and responds to the so-called “Egyptian Revival” that spread in the architecture and design of that time.
A few years ago, the Saint Tower was restored to its original splendor, and today it shines again as one of the most unique buildings in Buenos Aires. If you want to be surprised, you already know that you can walk around Once and discover this tower from another time that mixes history, exoticism and the footprint of a time when Buenos Aires dreamed of being a modern and monumental metropolis.