Messeturm

Messeturm
Messeturm
General information
Status	Completed
Type	Commercial offices
Architectural style	Art Deco, Postmodern
Location	Friedrich-Ebert-Anlage 49; Frankfurt; Hesse, Germany
Coordinates	50°06′44″N 8°39′10″E / 50.11222°N 8.65278°E
Construction started	13 July 1988
Opening	October 1990
Cost	DM500 million
Owner	Tishman Speyer Properties
Height
Roof	257 m (843 ft)
Top floor	228 m (748 ft)
Technical details
Floor count	63; 2 below ground
Floor area	61,711 m2 (664,300 sq ft)
Design and construction
Architect(s)	Helmut Jahn; Richard Murphy
Developer	Tishman Speyer Properties; CitiBank
Structural engineer	Ingenieurbüro Fritz Nötzold
Main contractor	HOCHTIEF AG
Other information
Public transit access	Festhalle/Messe; 16 17 Festhalle/Messe;
References

The Messeturm, or Trade Fair Tower, is a 63-storey, 257 m (843 ft)^[5] skyscraper in the Westend-Süd district of Frankfurt, 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, which is also located in Frankfurt.

The Messeturm is located near the Frankfurt Trade Fair grounds. Helmut Jahn 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 (60308), the others being Opernturm, another Frankfurt skyscraper, and the summit station on Zugspitze.

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 – presented as potential location for the new agency.^[6]

Design

The Messeturm is similar in design to towers by other architects including the Bank of America Plaza in Atlanta, Georgia and Key Tower (1991) in Cleveland, 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 6-metre (20 ft) deep foundation. Its ground floor area is just 1,681 m² (18,090 sq ft), and features a 36.3 m (119.1 ft) 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 stage 8 Euro-Contemporary building set in SimCity 4 (Deluxe or with Rush Hour).^[7]
- There is a building that has a similar appearance to the Messeturm in SimCity 3000.^{[citation needed]}