City-Haus
The 142.1 -meter-high City-Haus I is located in the Westend district in Frankfurt am Main at the Republic Square. It was built from 1971 to 1974 after plans by the architect Johannes Krahn and Richard Heil.
History
The City House I is also known as the Selmi Hochhaus after the Persian owner Ali Selmi. The project was at the time very controversial. On the night of 23 August 1973 broke out in the upper floors of the building shell from a fire that was visible far across the city and attracted many onlookers. The fire could not be deleted until eight hours later, as the Frankfurt fire brigade was not yet equipped for fire-fighting operations at this level and the risers were not yet in operation. Many onlookers cheered the fire ( "Citizens for Fire " ), students are even satirical songs ( "Today we burn the Selmi be small houses " ) have intoned. Arson, however, was later identified as least likely cause of the fire, apparently a defective welding machine had placed the wood sheathing of the 40th and 41st floor on fire. This major fire was the starting point modern fire protection for buildings in Germany and the start of the career of the top firefighter Ernst Achilles.
1976 acquired the DG Bank (now DZ Bank ), the high-rise building and set up a their headquarters. In 1985, the central (called City House II ) through a seven -storey building extended to the neighboring property, 1993, the DZ bank moved in addition to neighboring high-rise Westend Straße 1
Construction
The building is a reinforced concrete structure. It consists of a centrally arranged core group with exterior dimensions of 17.4 m x 14.2 m, and two mutually offset projectile wings, each 40 m long and 14.1 m wide. In addition to the core wear in each tract four internally arranged supports the vertical loads from. Standard floors have a height of 3.2 m. The floor slabs are plate beam structures. The plate thickness varies between 10 cm and 20 cm, the entire depth of between 40 cm and 60 cm. The tower stands on a up to 4.15 m thick bottom plate with 2000 m² area.
Rehabilitation
From October 2007 to December 2008, the City-Haus I was extensively renovated by architect Christoph Mackler production and was given a new facade and an overall brighter appearance. During the reconstruction period impairment of tenants could be kept low, as the new facade was hanged during the week from the outside to the Altfassade and Altfassade was removed only on the weekends. The new façade of the building energy consumption reduced by around 35 percent. The cost of the conversion amounted to 53 million euros.