We walked from the Pacific seafront in ritzy Bella Vista to down-to-earth El Cangrejo to the high-end Soho Mall to the super fun Hard Rock Hotel and back one day this week, a total of about three miles. I was struck along the way with the diversity of architecture in Panama City. It’s easy, from afar, to view the city as a bunch of white towers jutting into the sky. While there are many of those, especially along the ocean front, a little exploring shows rich and weird variations.
In between those huge towers you can find beautiful Spanish-style colonial homes with red tile roofs and courtyards full of flowering trees. You can also find some pretty far-out architecture, like “The Screw,” owls, and a canoe, along with other interesting shapes and colors.
White tower, black tower 
Owls up close 
Owls from far away 
Wavy gold 
Canoe shaped building to the far left. 
Reminds me of a cork 
Glass shard 
Balboa Tower 
Our (current) building
El Tornillo or the Screw, also called F&F Tower (so boring!), has a fascinating history. It was an architect’s purely theoretical idea based on rotating geometry and a prism, but he never planned for it to be built. However, once a client saw the drawing, he asked for it, on the condition that it stay within a $50 million budget. Built in 2011, and ranked as one of the top skyscrapers in the world that year, it stands almost 800 feet tall. It is such a landmark that many city maps include it.
Like many old Spanish towns, the roads of Panama City twist and turn and create strangely shaped city blocks. You can see something new and different from almost every angle. There’s even an app, which we haven’t tried, but will take you on a 3.5 mile walking tour that includes the former Trump Tower and other interesting sites. https://www.gpsmycity.com/tours/modern-architecture-in-panama-city-4342.html.
The Screw is so cool!!
It really is — and you can see it from almost anywhere. It’s creative and fun.