Twisted Frank Gehry tower to become Berlin’s tallest building

A German panel has selected a warped, incurving tower designed by Gehry Partners to become Berlin’s tallest high-rise and residential building.

Gehry beat David Chipperfield, Adjaye Associates and seven other practices in an invited competition for the 300-unit residential tower, with the jury citing the winning design’s rotating stacks of sculptural, stone-clad cubes the “most compelling” of the contest entries.

The 492-foot tower is conceived as a cluster of distroted cuboids that have been rotated away from one another to relate to some of the city's main focal points, particularly the nearby Karl-Marx-Allee.

"Gehry's design is strong in visual expression and introduces an unusually eccentric, new pattern for this location. Nevertheless, the facade radiates agreeable tranquility," commented competition judge and director of the city's urban development department, Regula Luscher.

The skyscraper will be developed by Texas-based real estate firm Hines, which previously collaborated with Gehry on the Miami Worldcenter and Berlin's DZ Bank.

The majority of the Hines-developed, 500,000 square foot structure will be dedicated to a mixture of apartments and penthouses. However, a portion of the tower will be used as a hotel.

The design approval follows a recent rejection by the Toronto city council of a trio of twisted towers that Gehry had designed for his hometown.

Courtesy Curbed.