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

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

, 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 1990 until 1997 when it was surpassed by the

Commerzbank Tower Commerzbank Tower is a 56-story, skyscraper in the Bankenviertel, banking district of Frankfurt, Germany. An antenna tower, antenna spire with a signal light on top gives the tower a total height of . It is List of tallest buildings in Germany ...

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

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

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 Libert ...

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 numerical digit, digits or both, sometimes including spaces or punctuation, inclu ...

(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 Ch ...

, another Frankfurt skyscraper, and the summit station on

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

. When Germany submitted its application to have Frankfurt selected as the seat of the European Union's Anti-money-laundering authority (AMLA) in 2023, the Messeturm was one of three options – alongside

Tower 185 Tower 185 is a 55-storey, skyscraper in the Gallus district of Frankfurt, Germany. As of 2023, it is the fourth-tallest building in Frankfurt and the fourth-tallest in Germany, tied with Main Tower. The anchor tenant of the tower is the Germ ...

– presented as potential location for the new agency.

Design

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

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

, Georgia and

Key Tower Key Tower (formerly known as Society Center) 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 ...

(1991) in

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

, 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 flat-leaved vanilla (''Vanilla planifolia, V. planifolia''). ''Vanilla'' is not Autogamy, autogamous, so pollination ...

stage 8 Euro-Contemporary building set in ''

SimCity 4 ''SimCity 4'' is a city-building game, city-building Construction and management simulation games, simulation Personal computer game, computer game developed by Maxis, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts. The game was released in January 2003 for Mi ...

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

SimCity 3000 ''SimCity 3000'' is a city building simulation video game released in 1999, and the third major installment in the ''SimCity'' series. It was published by Electronic Arts (EA) and developed by series creator Maxis. It was released for Microsoft ...

''.

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

Skyscrapers in Frankfurt

References

External links