At 121 meters (397 ft), it was the tallest building in Cuba for over 6 decades until the construction of La Torre López-Callejas.

[2] It was named after the contracting company Fomento de Obras y Construcciones, Sociedad Anónima, and the architects were Ernesto Gómez Sampera (1921–2004), Mercedes Diaz (his wife), and Martín Domínguez Esteban (1897-1970), who was the architect of the Radiocentro CMQ Building.

[4][1] The building was built between 1954 and 1956,[citation needed] is 121 metres (394 feet), and located in the Vedado section of Havana.

[citation needed] The company Fomento de Hipotecas Aseguradas (FHA) financed 80% of the cost of the residences and 60% of the commercial shops.

In the early 1960s, middle-class owners of residential floor units in the building had their properties nationalized by the current government.

In the 1970-1980s the building housed Soviet and Eastern bloc specialists and advisors and the ground store supermarket was for non-Cubans only.

The bearing walls are solid and have no openings except at the basement and lobby floors to facilitate access between rooms.

The wall and slab structural system form a three-dimensional lattice resisting horizontal forces.

An additional $30 per floor was charged the higher up in the building the unit was located; the highest apartments were the first to be sold.

There is a ramp to the street located at the corner of 19th and M; the podium was used as a staging area during the construction of the project.

The restaurant “El Emperador,” and a supermarket, a bank, a post office, theaters, and two radio stations are also located on the ground floor.

The corridors are separated vertically from each other by approximately twenty inches to provide for apartment ventilation and view to the west.

One penthouse on the south side of the FOCSA Building appears in the 1968 film Memories of Underdevelopment, written and directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea.