The 1972 Managua, Nicaragua earthquake was a severe test of modern earthquake resistant design and construction procedures. This paper examines the behaviour of the 18-story reinforced concrete Banco de America building which performed exceptionally well during the earthquake. Although the building suffered some structural and non-structural damage, its large, symmetrically located, coupled shear walls limited this damage to levels significantly below those observed in
more flexible structures. Several linear elastic and nonlinear analyses were conducted to evaluate the building's behaviour and determine the probable cause of the observed damage. Both static and dynamic elastic analyses were used to determine the members that would have failed and the consequence of these failures on the subsequent dynamic response. The effects of biaxial ground motions, foundation flexibility and ground motion characteristics were considered in the elastic investigations. To get a better idea of the dynamic behaviour of the principal lateral force resisting system considered in the design, nonlinear analyses were performed for the coupled shear wall cores as constructed and for the idealized case where the coupling girders were assumed to have unlimited ductility. Even code type static analyses satisfactorily identified the damaged regions. The principal design deficiency was the low shear strength of the coupling girders. However, the nonlinear results indicated that had these girders been able to develop their flexural capacity they would have suffered substantial numbers of reversals and the shear walls would have been subjected to undesirable states of stress. The analytical results as well as the building’s performance demonstrated that buildings with coupled shear walls combined with moment resisting frames offer excellent protection against seismic excitations, minimizing nonstructural damage while providing several lines of defense in the event of localized failure. Design and repair recommendations are offered.