Palacio Salvo

Palacio Salvo (Salvo Palace) is a building at the intersection of 18 de Julio Avenue and Plaza Independencia in Montevideo, Uruguay. It was designed by the architect Mario Palanti, an Italian immigrant living in Buenos Aires, who used a similar design for his Palacio Barolo in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Finished in 1928, Palacio Salvo stands 100 m high with the antenna included. It was the tallest building in Latin America for a brief period.

Overview
The site was bought by the Salvo brothers for 650,000 Uruguayan pesos. It was built on the site where the Confiteria La Giralda was once located, a place renowned for being where Gerardo Matos Rodríguez wrote his tango La Cumparsita in 1917. At present, on that same historic site, inside Palacio Salvo, the Tango Museum of Montevideo is open to the public, and exhibits the history of La Cumparsita and of Uruguayan Tango.

The original specifications, describing the details of the construction, describe a lighthouse at the top of the building, which was replaced by a set of antennas. The specifications stated “on the top part of the tower a lighthouse will be placed made by Salmoiraghi of Italy, with a parabolic mirror of 920 mm, reaching approximately 100 km, and a rotating 100 amp lamp.”

The building was originally intended to be a hotel, but this plan did not work out, and it has since been occupied by a mixture of offices and private residences. The building has a height of 95 m. While the set of antennas was at its top, its total height was 100 m. The antennas were permanently removed in November 2012.

Trivia

 * The song "The Tower of Montevideo", included in Damon Albarn's 2021 album The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows, is inspired by this building.