The Messeturm, or Trade Fair Tower, is a 63-storey, skyscraper in the Westend-Süd district of

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

, Germany. It is the second tallest building in Frankfurt, the second tallest building in Germany and the third tallest building in the European Union. It was the tallest building in Europe from its completion in 1991 until 1997 when it was surpassed by the

Commerzbank Tower Commerzbank Tower is a 56-story, skyscraper owned by Samsung of Korea since September 2016 in the banking district of Frankfurt, Germany. An antenna spire with a signal light on top gives the tower a total height of . It is the tallest build ...

, which is also located in Frankfurt. The Messeturm is located near the

Frankfurt Trade Fair Messe Frankfurt () is the world's largest trade fair, congress and event organizer with its own exhibition grounds. The organisation has 2,500 employees at some 30 locations, generating annual sales of around €661 million. Its services inclu ...

grounds.

Helmut Jahn Helmut Jahn (January 4, 1940 – May 8, 2021) was a German-American architect, known for projects such as the Sony Center on Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, Germany; the Messeturm in Frankfurt, Germany; the Thompson Center in Chicago; One Liberty ...

designed the Messeturm in a postmodern architectural style. It is regarded as one of the design classics among European skyscrapers. Despite its name, the Messeturm is not used for trade fair exhibitions but as an office building. It is one of the few buildings in Germany with their own

postal code A postal code (also known locally in various English-speaking countries throughout the world as a postcode, post code, PIN or ZIP Code) is a series of letters or digits or both, sometimes including spaces or punctuation, included in a postal a ...

(60308), the others being

Opernturm OpernTurm (Opera Tower) is a 43- storey skyscraper in the Westend-Süd district of Frankfurt, Germany. The property is situated opposite Alte Oper on the corner of Bockenheimer Landstraße and Bockenheimer Anlage. The building was designed by ...

, another Frankfurt skyscraper, and the summit station on

Zugspitze The Zugspitze (), at above Normalhöhennull, sea level, is the highest peak of the Wetterstein Mountains as well as the highest mountain in Germany. It lies south of the town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and the Austria–Germany border runs over ...

Design

The Messeturm is similar in design to towers by other architects including the Bank of America Plaza in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

, Georgia and

Key Tower Key Tower is a skyscraper on Public Square in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Designed by architect César Pelli, it is the tallest building in the state of Ohio, the 39th-tallest in the United States, and the 165th-tallest in the world. The buildi ...

(1991) in

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

, Ohio. Frankfurters often call it ''Bleistift'' ("pencil") due to its shape. The construction of the building's foundation set a world record for the longest continuous concrete pour. Ninety trucks poured concrete for 78 hours into the deep foundation. Its ground floor area is just , and features a pyramid at the top. The tower uses numerous geometric shapes in its design such as the square footprint which is the main shape used throughout the tower. It then rises to a cylindrical shape which finally completes in a pyramid. There are 900 parking places in a public parking garage and a direct connection to the subway.

In popular culture

* SimCity series ** MesseTurm appears under the name ''Hogan Wallace and White Insurance'' as a

vanilla Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus ''Vanilla (genus), Vanilla'', primarily obtained from pods of the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla (''Vanilla planifolia, V. planifolia''). Pollination is required to make the p ...

stage 8 Euro-Contemporary building set in ''

SimCity 4 ''SimCity 4'' is a city-building simulation computer game developed by Maxis, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts. It was released on January 14, 2003. It is the fourth major installment in the ''SimCity'' series. ''SimCity 4'' has a single expan ...

'' (Deluxe or with Rush Hour). ** There is a building that has a similar appearance to the Messeturm in '' SimCity 3000''.

Gallery

File:Friedrich-Ebert-Anlage 2, Frankfurt.jpg, The inner city ring with Messeturm in the background File:Sunset-maintower-2011-ffm-072-b.jpg, Messeturm at sunset File:Frankfurt am Main Messeturm bei Nacht.jpg, Messeturm at night File:Messeturm from street level.jpg, Messeturm from street level File:Messeturm-Frankfurt.jpg, Messeturm from street level

References

External links

MesseTurm at SKYLINE ATLAS

MesseTurm at Phorio

MesseTurm Paper Model
{{Authority control Modernist architecture in Germany Office buildings completed in 1991 Skyscrapers in Frankfurt 1991 establishments in Germany Helmut Jahn buildings Skyscraper office buildings in Germany Art Deco skyscrapers

Design

In popular culture

Gallery

See also

References

External links