New facade – new name.
The building which for decades marked Hamburg’s inner city skyline with its landmark IBM logo is now called Kallmorgen Tower. The high-rise building by the famous architect Werner Kallmorgen was erected in 1966 and made architectural history with its facade, designed to imitate a punch card.
When its first user and name-giver moved out, the building was occupied by SPIEGEL-Verlag for many years until it removed to a larger building on the Ericusspitze in 2011.
Based on an urban development competition, the initial investor was also in a position to develop further parts of the site for new buildings additional to the protected existing buildings on the site of the so-called SPIEGEL-Insel (SPIEGEL Island).
After its sale to the present owner, the existing building was completely gutted down to the bare building shell, remediated with due regard to its protected status, and reconstructed for its new use. Due to the building’s clear and straightforward load-bearing structure and its remarkably good condition, the interventions in the structure could largely be limited to reconstruction on the topmost storey and in the basement for new lifts and modern building services.
But even the apparently straightforward load-bearing structure with its simple reinforced concrete skeleton construction – practically straight out of the textbook – still posed a multiplicity of challenges for the planning engineers in the course of the building works, especially at the interfaces to the neighbouring buildings.
© BIN, ROOM Communication GmbH / fotograf-hamburg.de / QUEST Management GmbH, BIN, BIN, BIN / QUEST Management GmbH, BIN / QUEST Management GmbH
