Panama City is one of those places where the skyline can seem almost impossible when you first arrive. One minute you are looking at tropical vegetation, the Pacific Ocean and ships waiting to enter the Panama Canal, and the next you are surrounded by a forest of glass and concrete towers. Panama City does not merely have a few skyscrapers. It has an enormous collection of them, and its transformation from a relatively low rise tropical capital into one of the most vertical cities in the Americas happened remarkably quickly.
Today, the city is home to dozens of buildings exceeding 150 metres. The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat's Skyscraper Center currently lists 68 completed buildings of at least 150 metres in Panama City, with the city ranked first in Central America for the number of such buildings.
And at the top of this concrete jungle is a tower rising nearly 300 metres above the city.
The JW Marriott Panama: The King of the Skyline
The tallest completed building in Panama City is the JW Marriott Panama, formerly associated with the Trump Ocean Club development in Punta Pacifica. According to the Skyscraper Center, it reaches approximately 284 metres, or 932 feet, and has 70 floors.
The tower is enormous by almost any standard. Put a 284 metre building beside a normal ten storey building and the smaller structure suddenly looks almost like a garden shed.
Its location makes the effect even more dramatic. Punta Pacifica sits directly beside the Pacific Ocean, so the tower rises from an already elevated coastal skyline with an enormous amount of open space around it. From certain viewpoints, it looks less like a conventional city building and more like a giant sailboat turned vertically.
The JW Marriott is also significant beyond Panama itself. It is currently the tallest completed building in Central America according to the Skyscraper Center.
One of the strangest things about Panama City is that a building this tall does not look completely out of place.
There are plenty more behind it.
BICSA Financial Center
The BICSA Financial Center, also known as the International Bank Tower, reaches approximately 267 metres and has become one of the defining towers of Panama City's financial district. The Skyscraper Center currently places it second in the city's ranking.
Unlike some of the residential towers clustered along the ocean, BICSA has a distinctly corporate identity. Its height reflects another important part of Panama City's development story: the city is not simply a beachside condominium destination.
It is also a major financial and business centre.
Banks, multinational companies, logistics businesses, law firms, real estate companies and international services all helped create demand for modern high rise buildings. The result is a skyline where luxury apartments can sit only a short distance from serious financial infrastructure.
The Point
At approximately 266 metres, The Point is another giant of the Punta Paitilla skyline. The Skyscraper Center currently places it third in Panama City at 266 metres and 67? floors depending on the database's measurement conventions.
The Point is particularly interesting because Panama City's skyscrapers are not just office towers. A huge percentage of the city's vertical development is residential.
People actually live remarkably high above the ground.
That means an ordinary apartment in Panama City can potentially have views that would be considered luxury penthouse views in many other cities.
Torre Vitri
Torre Vitri rises approximately 260 metres in Costa del Este and is another enormous residential tower. The Skyscraper Center currently places it fourth in the city.
Costa del Este is particularly fascinating for anyone interested in Panama's urban development because it represents a different side of the city from Casco Viejo or the older downtown districts.
It is a planned modern district where towers rise beside wide roads, offices, apartment buildings, shopping areas and landscaped spaces.
Standing among these towers can feel less like being in a traditional Central American capital and more like being transported into a futuristic business district.
Ocean Two
Another giant is Ocean Two, located in Costa del Este.
The Skyscraper Center lists its height at approximately 257 metres, with 73 floors.
The name itself gives away something important about Panama City's skyline. Many of these buildings were designed around the attraction of ocean views.
And Panama has something that many skyscraper cities do not have:
the Pacific Ocean directly beside the skyline.
From high floors, residents can look across the city toward the ocean, watch ships moving through the Pacific approaches to the Panama Canal and see the skyline stretching in both directions.
YooPanama
Then there is YooPanama Inspired by Starck, a striking residential tower rising approximately 247 metres.
The building was developed with the design influence of Philippe Starck, and it contributes to one of the most visually interesting sections of the Panama City skyline along Avenida Balboa. The Skyscraper Center lists it at about 247 metres.
Avenida Balboa is one of the best places to appreciate how dramatically Panama City has changed.
You have the Pacific Ocean on one side and an enormous wall of skyscrapers on the other.
Add tropical vegetation, palms, humid weather and mountains in the distance and you get something rather unusual: a tropical city that looks like a modern financial metropolis.
Pearl Tower
Pearl Tower reaches approximately 242 metres and is another Costa del Este giant.
By the time you reach buildings around 240 metres, you begin to understand how unusual Panama City's skyline really is.
A 240 metre tower would be an extraordinary landmark in many cities.
In Panama City, it is one of many.
That is perhaps the most surprising thing about the city.
La Maison by Fendi Casa
One of the more recent additions to the upper end of the skyline is La Maison by Fendi Casa, which reaches approximately 235 metres according to the Skyscraper Center.
The tower demonstrates another evolution in Panama City's high rise development.
The early skyscraper boom was heavily associated with rapid residential and commercial expansion. Later projects increasingly marketed themselves around luxury brands, designer interiors and high end lifestyles.
Panama City's skyscrapers therefore tell a story not only about population and economics, but also about the city's emergence as an international luxury property market.
Rivage
Rivage reaches approximately 233 metres and stands along Avenida Balboa.
The building is part of the extraordinary wall of towers that makes the waterfront look almost futuristic.
The view from the ocean is particularly spectacular.
Instead of a traditional city skyline gradually rising behind a waterfront, Panama City often looks like a gigantic collection of vertical buildings packed together along the Pacific.
And then, behind them, the city eventually gives way to tropical hills and forest.
F&F Tower: The Twisted Building
One of the most recognizable buildings in Panama City is not necessarily the tallest.
It is the F&F Tower.
Standing approximately 233 metres tall, the tower is famous for its distinctive twisted design.
It looks as though someone took a conventional skyscraper and twisted it around an invisible central axis.
The building was originally known as the Revolution Tower during construction, but the F&F name became associated with the completed tower.
It is a fantastic example of something that happens frequently in Panama City: architecture becomes part of the city's identity.
The F&F Tower does not simply provide office or residential space.
It gives photographers something to photograph.
It gives tourists something to point at.
And it gives Panama City a recognizable architectural symbol.
Panama City Has an Almost Ridiculous Number of Skyscrapers
Perhaps the most fascinating fact is not the identity of the tallest building.
It is how many tall buildings exist below it.
The current Skyscraper Center database lists 91 completed buildings of at least 150 metres across Panama, with the overwhelming majority located in Panama City.
The city's list includes towers such as Tower Financial Center, Megapolis Tower, Waters Tower, Evolution Tower, The Paramount, Torre Aqualina, Oasis on the Bay, Ocean One and many others.
There are so many that remembering them all becomes almost impossible.
And this is what makes Panama City unusual.
You don't have one famous skyscraper.
You have an entire ecosystem of skyscrapers.
Why Did Panama City Become So Tall?
The answer is a mixture of geography, economics, population growth, international business and real estate.
Panama City is squeezed between the Pacific Ocean and areas of hills, protected land and the Canal Zone. Land in desirable central areas is therefore particularly valuable.
Building upward makes economic sense.
There is also the Panama Canal.
The canal transformed Panama City into a major international logistics and commercial centre. Ships from around the world pass through the country, while businesses connected with banking, trade, logistics, shipping, tourism and international services established themselves in the capital.
Then came the condominium boom.
Panama City became increasingly attractive to foreign investors, retirees, executives and people looking for second homes. Developers responded by constructing enormous residential towers with swimming pools, gyms, security, parking, restaurants and spectacular views.
The result was a kind of vertical arms race.
One tower went up.
Then another.
Then another one needed to be taller.
Then someone decided it should also have an unusual shape.
Then someone else added a swimming pool halfway up the building.
And suddenly Panama had one of the strangest skylines in the hemisphere.
A City Where 50 Floors Can Feel Normal
One of the most interesting things about visiting Panama City is how quickly your perception of height changes.
At first, a 30 storey building looks enormous.
Then you see a 50 storey building.
Then you see one with 65 floors.
Then you look up and discover that the building beside it has more than 70.
Eventually you stop being impressed by buildings that would be landmarks almost anywhere else.
That is the psychological effect of a vertical city.
Panama City has effectively trained its residents and visitors to think that enormous towers are normal.
The Skyline Is Still Young
Panama City's skyscraper story is surprisingly recent.
The Skyscraper Center identifies Miramar Towers I, completed in 1996, as the city's first building to exceed 150 metres.
That means the modern skyscraper city is largely a phenomenon of the last few decades.
Think about that for a moment.
Much of the skyline that defines Panama City today did not exist when many current residents were children.
The city essentially went from a relatively conventional tropical capital to a forest of skyscrapers within a generation.
The Best Way to Experience the Skyline
You do not necessarily need to go inside one of the tallest buildings to appreciate them.
Some of the best views are from outside the skyscraper district.
From the waterfront, the towers form a massive wall behind the Pacific.
From the historic areas, the contrast between old Panama and modern Panama becomes dramatic.
From elevated viewpoints around the city, the towers appear as a giant collection of glass needles surrounded by tropical vegetation.
And from the water, the scale becomes even more impressive.
The Pacific Ocean provides the perfect foreground for the skyline.
The Strange Beauty of Panama City's Vertical Jungle
Panama City is sometimes described as the Miami of Central America, but the comparison only goes so far.
There is certainly plenty of glass, luxury property, oceanfront development and high rise living.
But Panama City has something Miami does not have in quite the same way.
Behind and around its skyscrapers is real tropical jungle.
The skyline is surrounded by rainforest, hills and the Canal watershed. You can leave the centre of the city and relatively quickly find yourself looking at monkeys, sloths, toucans and other wildlife.
That contrast is what makes Panama City's skyline so fascinating.
You can stand beneath a 70 storey skyscraper in the morning, watch ships passing toward the Panama Canal, and later be surrounded by tropical forest.
It is an unusual combination of concrete jungle and actual jungle.
And perhaps that is the best way to understand Panama City.
It isn't simply a city that happens to have a lot of tall buildings.
It is a tropical metropolis that decided to grow vertically.
And it grew very, very high.