Turning Torso & Västra hamnen, Malmö

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You find Turning Torso in Västra Hamnen (the Western Harbour) in Malmö.
The landmark of the Western Harbour is just Santiago Calatrava’s skyscraper called “TURNING TORSO”, rising 190 meter and it´s said to be the highest building in Sweden and the highest residential building in Europe thanks its has 54 floors .

The architect Santiago Calatrava has designed the house and the human body has been the model and the inspiration. The result is a house with a turn of 90 degrees.
In the building, the spiralling tower is composed of nine box units, each of five floors. There is also one floor between all the cubes - these floors is used for different purposes. The equivalent in the tower of the sculpture's steel support is the nucleus of internal elevators and stairs, through which the box units communicate.

INFORMATION from the official web site:
Name: Turning Torso
Height: 190 m
Nmber of floors: 54
Elevators: 3 (+2)
Number of stairs: 1
Number of cubes: 9
Number of floors in every cube: 5
Area of every floor: 400 m2
Turning: 90 grader
Model: human body in motion

Other facts about Turning Torso here:
http://www.turningtorso.net/facts.html

What a design magazine says about Turning Torso :
http://www.arcspace.com/architects/calatrava/torso2/torso2.html

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VÄSTRA HAMNEN is a neighbourhood of Malmö, located on the shoreline of the Öresund Sound and sits on what was once an industrial area, now replaced by a new city district with exciting architecture, lovely beach promenades, green spaces and stunning views of the 8 km-long Öresund Bridge that arches towards Denmark.
The neighbourhood is home to a wide variety of flora and fauna. Water is of course a vital element of the environment, expressed in canals, ponds and watercourse, as well as green spaces.

An award-winning ecological housing area finished in 2001 for the major European housing expo Bo01 is found here. In fact, the buildings were designed by several internationally renowned architects including Santiago Calatrava.
The landmark of the area is his skyscraper called “TURNING TORSO”, rising 200 metres above this new, green, waterside cityscape of apartment and office buildings, beaches and beachfront.

In the Turning Torso building, the spiralling tower is composed of nine box units, each of five floors. The equivalent in the tower of the sculpture's steel support is the nucleus of internal elevators and stairs, through which the box units communicate.

Facts about Turning Torso here:
http://www.turningtorso.net/facts.html

What a design magazine says about Turning Torso :
http://www.arcspace.com/architects/calatrava/torso2/torso2.html

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Probably the stand out feature of modern Malmo is the Turning Torso. It's the tallest skyscraper in Scandinavia and a beautiful piece of architecture by Spanish designer Santiago Calatrava. It only opened in 2005, and reaches nearly 200 meters with over 50 floors. It's designed to look as though the building is turning around on itself, and it creates quite an interesting sight when you are below looking up.

The only disappointment, and it's a big one: You can't visit the top. It's made up of private residences, and they don't welcome uninvited guests.

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With its 190.4 meters the Turning Torso is the second highest residential building in Europe after the 264-meter skyscraper Triumph Palace in Moscow.

The design is based on nine cubes with five floors in each cube. Between the floors allowing for it will be a total of 54 floors. Each floor is about 400 square meters. The total office space comprises approximately 4200 sq ft and is located in the bottom two cubes. Cube three to nine cube comprise a total of 147 apartments. The two top floors (53 and 54) is a conference facility Turning Torso Meetings. Each floor basically consists of a square part around the core and a triangular portion, which is partially supported by an exterior stålbärverk. The entire structure rotates a quarter turn on their way up.

From 2009 the public is allowed to visit the building and see the view. This is allowed only for a few weeks in the summer and a limited number of visitors, required an advance booking for the price of 195 SEK. The building is built for housing and we have assessed the visits as disruptive to the residents if done more often than that.

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A real masterpiece and a symbol of Malmö, as well as a must visit. Torso looks like those towers, which kids construct with Lego. It is not a pretentious American skyscraper but rather something really innovative and good looking.

Tower Torso is Sweden and the Nordic region's tallest skyscraper at Lilla Varvsgatan i Västra Hamnen. The building is designed and constructed by architect Santiago Calatrava and owned by HSB.

Malmö's Western Harbour was once Malmö’s industrial area with famous Kockums shipyards that had the world's largest dock and the world's largest crane with a lifting capacity of 1500 tonnes. The shipyard had 6,000 employees in early 1960s and was able to build vessels of up to 700,000 tonnes.
The Kockums company never recovered from the oil crisis of the 1970s and the competition from the Asian shipyards and was finally closed in mid-1980s. After several attemts to continue industrial production here (Saab-Scania automobile factory was producing here until it was bought by General Motors in 1989) the area of Western Harbour entered into a huge process of post-industrial transformation.

The area of Västra Hamnen covers about 140 hectares and currently has a number of projects which are at the planning and construction stages. It is divided into several development areas: the exhibition area, the trade fair area in former SAAB factory with its slipway, the crane area, former aircraft factory, the Celcius area and the Universitetsholmen university area. The plans are for all of these areas to be developed as a mixed-use, consisting of premises for residential, office, commercial and educational purposes.

The location of Västra Hamnen is excellent since it is close to the city centre and overlooking the dynamic Öresund Strait. A stone's throw from the older city centre, it offers opportunities for science, business and outdoor life.

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The new landmark of Malmo, the Turning Torso with its 190.4 meters is the tallest skyscraper in Sweden. This is really an interesting building to see, the concrete and steel tower consists of a core and an outside bearing structure made of steel. The building twists 90 degrees around its own axis and comprises nine cubes, each of which have five floors.
We were told, that the skyscraper is symbolizing a man twisting his torso to behold the world. It lies rather far from the downtown, in an industrial area under redevelopment.
You may look at the outside only, because visitors are not allowed in the residential building.
However, next door is a small building where for 35 Kronen you can see an awful boring film in swedish (?) language about the superstar spanish architect and his building.
Of course you can buy a lot of trinkets as souvenir.

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This is Malmös pride. Construction/digging started officially February 14, 2001 and the tower was ready in autumn 2005.

Architect was Santiago Calatravas, also an artist, sculptor and engineer. He got inspired by one of his own sculptures "the twisting tower". Calatravas is based in Zurich, Paris, Valencia and New York. He finds inspiration in the natural movements of animals and humans. Amongst Calatrava's acclaimed works are bridges, railway stations, communications towers and traffic control towers.

Turning Torso got 54 floors, is 190 metres tall and the entire construction twists 90 degrees on its way up. It got 147 flats, a gym, sauna, 8 offices, a function suite, guest rooms and a gallery inside. Residents also have access to their own lockable space in the building's temperature controlled wine cellar. Turning Torso has a reception manned 24 hours a day by a concierge who can provide a range of services that makes life easier for residents.

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As you are looking at the Turning Torso, you might as well have a look at the entire Western Harbour. What used to be an industrial harbour area and home of the Kockums wharf with its huge crane, has been redeveloped since Malmö hosted Bo01, one of the many Swedish fairs for modern architecture, in 2001. Now the place reminds you of a sort of Docklands development with housing in all kinds of shapes. As a focus is Scaniaplatsen, a wide place facing the sea, where people gather on sunny summer days to stroll around the seafront (see local tip). If you are interested in architecture, this is a must. Click on the second picture and you will see some of my own favourites, the house boats. The third one shows the whole area from Ribersborg beach. You can see many more houses in my Västra Hamnen travelogue.

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This building, which was finally opened in 2005, has split the Malmö population in half. Those who hate it think that it is a complete waste of money that could have been spent on AFFORDABLE housing for Malmö citizens, and those who love it think that finally, little Malmö has a building which even impress the Stockholmers. Because it does, there's no getting around it when even Stockholm's mayor says she's jealous of it. Spanish architect Calatrava got to see his masterpiece built in Sweden's third city by housing company HSB which nearly went bancrupt in the process and sacked their local chairman, but hey, afterwards, the Torso was finished, the world was impressed and the whole thing opened with a huge party in the city library (which upset the negative people even more since that meant it was closed to the public) with Calatrava as guest of honour. Malmö has a building which can be seen from Copenhagen across the strait. You however can NOT see it other than from the outside. But that too is quite impressive as it twists its way up the sky. You don't have to be a millionaire to live here but it helps. The building has a concierge, wine cellar and other non-typical things in the Swedish housing market...Click on the other pictures to see it being built...