Centro Simón Bolívar Towers

The twin 32-storey slabs of the Centro Simón Bolívar — completed in 1956 under the Pérez Jiménez dictatorship — are the defining piece of mid-century Caracas. They were the first true skyscrapers in the city and held the title of tallest buildings in South America for years. The architect Cipriano Domínguez worked in the international modernist style of Le Corbusier and Niemeyer, and the towers were intended as a north-south gateway between the old colonial centre and the new modernist Caracas to the south.

The buildings house government ministries; access is restricted. The plaza below — built over a four-level commercial concourse and connected to the Capitolio metro station — is one of the most heavily used public spaces in the city. The view of the twin towers framed against the Ávila is iconic.

things to do el silencio architecture
A story
Local lore calls the pair *Las Torres del Silencio* — the Towers of Silence — because they replaced an entire colonial slum cleared by the Pérez Jiménez government in the 1940s. The displaced residents were rehoused in the modernist apartment blocks of El Silencio designed by Carlos Raúl Villanueva — Venezuela's first big experiment in public housing.

Other places in El Silencio