D.he record has been broken: With the 280-meter-high Millennium Tower in the Europaviertel, the skyline of the city of Frankfurt is getting a new front runner, which is not only exceptionally high, but also looks really good. The Frankfurt architect Ferdinand Heide designed a twisted tower with a publicly accessible “Skyhall” at the top. This almost twenty meter high room allows a spectacular view of Frankfurt and the surrounding area and at the same time gives the tower a striking conclusion. In addition to the higher tower designed as an office and hotel tower, a second, 157-meter-high tower with 500 apartments is planned. The “twist” in the facade gives the two towers a unique appearance. In addition, the towers rotate away from each other. The gap is growing, and future users get an undisguised view.
Heide was able to prevail in an architecture competition against internationally renowned competition. Office Cobe from Denmark landed in second place, two awards went to Schneider + Schumacher from Frankfurt and to David Chipperfield Architects from Berlin and London. The client CA Immo, who presented the result on Monday, wants to complete the project by 2030. “We are now starting intensively with the planning,” said the managing director Matthias Schmidt, who expects construction to start in 2025 or 2026 – depending on the successful marketing of the towers and the building permit. He estimated the construction time to be at least five years. The company is investing a very high three-digit million amount. CA Immo has already built several high-rise buildings in Frankfurt, including the One office tower and Tower 185 in the vicinity.
Workplaces and apartments
A mixed-use ensemble is planned for the Millennium site. In the higher tower, the entrance of which is on Osloer Straße, office space with up to 4,000 workstations will be created, and a hotel will move into the middle. In two so-called sky lobbies, the users of the tower can change the 21 different elevators and step outside on the green terraces. The glazed Himmelshalle at the top of the tower holds 199 visitors and is intended to serve as a viewing platform, perhaps also as an event location. There should also be an exit to the fresh air. In the lower twelve floors of the residential tower, around 200 of the around 500 apartments are to be publicly funded. The entrance to the residential tower is on Hohenstaufenstrasse.
The towers form terraces and a square that are to be lushly landscaped. A four-room daycare center, shops and restaurants open up towards the square. The façades of the towers consist of floor-to-ceiling glass elements and photovoltaic modules, which are supposed to cover around a quarter of the building’s electricity consumption. Geothermal energy is also used. A new structural concept should save around 20 percent concrete and steel.
Skyline is changing
As the chairman of the jury, Johann Eisele, explained, Heide’s design made the best use of the available space. The inferior drafts would have been closer. Head of Planning Mike Josef (SPD) praised the “spectacular” winning design. “It can become a figurehead for our city. Such projects make Frankfurt a part. We are perceived internationally as a city with a skyline. ”Heide said that the building had an enormous long-distance effect and was of outstanding importance for the change in the skyline, into which it had to fit.
Images generated on the computer already show how much the skyscraper will shape and change the appearance of the skyline. If the Commerzbank tower, which is 260 meters high, has dominated the crown of the city so far, the weight will shift to the left when viewed from the east. In this “classic” perspective of the Frankfurt skyscraper wall, the viewer previously had the impression of a mountain-shaped massif that runs out onto the Commerzbank tower and then falls away again. Now the two towers will keep the skyline more in balance. It is considered likely that the Millennium Tower will grow by the remaining twenty meters to the 300-meter mark during the planning phase. The Commerzbank Tower also reaches this height – but only thanks to its antenna.
All contributions to the architecture competition, in which eight offices, including so-called star architects such as Herzog & de Meuron and OMA, were involved, can be viewed in the atrium of the planning department until December 17th.
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