MESSETURM


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MESSETURM
257 metres/843 feet
63 stories
Completed: 1990

Some MesseTurm facts & figures:

- The (office) building can be found in the German city of Frankfurt and is sited next
to the entrance of the famous trade fair grounds of the city;
the tower functions as a kind of a main gate to this site.
- the tower emerges from a square base (41m x 41m (135f x 135f) in length/width,
and 18 metres (59 feet) in height) with tapering corners. Towards the top of the building
it sprouts a glass cylinder which gives way to a distinctive three-storey pyramid.
This pyramidal roof has a height of 36,3 metres (119 feet);
- it was Frankfurt, Germany’s and even Europe’s tallest skyscraper from 1990 until May
of 1997, when Frankfurt’s Commerzbank Tower was completed;
a tower that is only 2 metres taller than MesseTurm;
currently it's Frankfurt’s second, and Europe’s third tallest skyscraper;
- Approximately 3,500 people work in the tower;
- office space is rented by several companies,
most notably by Credit Suisse, Reuters, and Goldman Sachs;
- the building was designed in art deco/postmodern style by Helmuth Jahn
(of Murphy/Jahn, Chicago), and was inspired by the early American skyscrapers of the Twenties and Thirties;
- total building costs were approximately 500 million Deutsch Mark (250 million us dollar);
- Construction started in July of 1988 and ended in October of 1990;
- MesseTurm has a gross floor area of 69,700 square metres,
with 61,000 square metres as usable floor area;
- the construction of the tower's foundation set a world record for the longest continuous concrete pour.
Ninety trucks and 240 workers poured concrete for 78 hours into the six metres (20 feet) deep foundation;
- the façade comprises a curtain wall of steel, glass and polished red granite;
- the tower houses two restaurants in the basement, which are open to the public;
the tower itself is not open to the public;
- underneath the building there is a two-story public parking garage for 900 cars;
- in front of the tower the sculpture 'Hammering Man’ (1991) is situated.
It’s a sculpture (designed by Jonathan Borofsky) that can be found in several other cities as well
(New York City, Seattle, Dallas, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Basel, Washington D.C. and Seoul).
The Frankfurt version (21 metres tall) is the largest of all the Hammering Man sculptures;
- the building has 24 (high speed) elevators;
- in 1992, in Atlanta, USA, a building similar in design to MesseTurm was completed.
The Kevin Roche/John Dinkeloo & Associates designed Bank of America Plaza
(312m/1,023f), which is also pencil-shaped; no wonder both towers are nicknamed
‘the pencil’ by the inhabitants of their respective cities;
- the tower has its own postal code (60308),
the only building in Germany to have an own postal code;



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