The Cologne Tower () is a 44-

storey A storey (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) or story (American English), is any level part of a building with a floor that could be used by people (for living, work, storage, recreation, etc.). Plurals for the wor ...

office An office is a space where the employees of an organization perform Business administration, administrative Work (human activity), work in order to support and realize the various goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a po ...

skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Most modern sources define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition, other than being very tall high-rise bui ...

in the Köln-Neustadt-Nord district of

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

that stands high, or , including its antenna. Construction of the tower lasted from June 1999 to November 2001. It is the second-tallest building in the city (after the

Cathedral A cathedral is a church (building), church that contains the of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, Annual conferences within Methodism, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually s ...

), the second-tallest in

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia or North-Rhine/Westphalia, commonly shortened to NRW, is a States of Germany, state () in Old states of Germany, Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhabitants, it is the List of German states by population, most ...

after the Post Tower in

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

(Cologne Cathedral is considered to be a building in Cologne but is outside of North-Rhine-Westphalia due to the canon law of the Catholic Church), and the 22nd-tallest in Germany. Because of the tower's location near Cologne's

MediaPark The MediaPark is an urban regeneration neighborhood in Cologne, Germany, completed by the turn of the millennium. It was set up to accommodate companies of the media industry, media and communication industry, as well as cultural institutions, a ...

, it is home to several media sector companies. The observation deck and restaurant, located on the 30th floor, were opened to the public in June 2006.

Architecture

Designed around a load-bearing central core, the reinforced concrete tower with an mast to its upper end was built in cooperation between the architectural firm Kohl & Kohl and Parisian architect

Jean Nouvel Jean Nouvel (; born 12 August 1945) is a French architect. Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of ''Mars 1976'' and ''Syndicat de l'Architecture'', France’s first labor union for architects. He has ob ...

. The glass facade of the building was designed with reflected light in mind. Pictures of the Cologne Cathedral and the skyline of Cologne's Old Town were applied to the glass via screen-printing. Depending on light exposure, different combinations of these images appear on the building.

Transmitter

From the antenna on top of the tower, three FM frequencies are broadcast mainly for the northern districts of Cologne: 98.6 MHz/0.4 kW WDR 2 Regionalfenster Cologne, 87.6 MHz/0.3 kW WDR Eins Live, and 89.9 MHz/0.03 kW Germany Kultur. Despite the low power levels, the height of the antenna allows all frequencies to transmit to the northern suburbs. In 2002, the Cologne Tower replaced the former FM transmitter site on the nearby Hansahochaus on Hansaring.

References

External links

* Innenstadt, Cologne Skyscrapers in Cologne Skyscraper office buildings in Germany Buildings and structures in Cologne Buildings and structures completed in 2001 Office buildings completed in 2001 2001 establishments in Germany 21st-century architecture in Germany Modernist architecture in Germany Jean Nouvel buildings Tourist attractions in Cologne {{NorthRhineWestphalia-struct-stub

Architecture

Transmitter

See also

References

External links