The JenTower is a skyscraper

Skyscraper

A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...

 in Jena

Jena

Jena is a university city in central Germany on the river Saale. It has a population of approx. 103,000 and is the second largest city in the federal state of Thuringia, after Erfurt.-History:Jena was first mentioned in an 1182 document...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

.

Common names

The tower has been known by many names, official and unofficial. From 1972 Until January 2005, the tower was called the Intershop Tower after its principal tenant, Intershop Communications AG. On November 30, 2004, the building was renamed the JenTower. Until 1995 the building was used by the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, and therefore it is still colloquially known as the University Tower.

Further unofficial names include Phallus

Phallus

A phallus is an erect penis, a penis-shaped object such as a dildo, or a mimetic image of an erect penis. Any object that symbolically resembles a penis may also be referred to as a phallus; however, such objects are more often referred to as being phallic...

 Jenensis, Cookie

Cookie

In the United States and Canada, a cookie is a small, flat, baked treat, usually containing fat, flour, eggs and sugar. In most English-speaking countries outside North America, the most common word for this is biscuit; in many regions both terms are used, while in others the two words have...

 Roll (Keksrolle), or the Henselmann tower, after the architect Hermann Henselmann

Hermann Henselmann

Hermann Henselmann was a German architect most famous for his buildings constructed in East Germany during the 1950s and 60s.-Early years:...

.

Buildings in vicinity

The JenTower stands directly opposite to the so-called Building 15, which was the first German multistoried building. Building 15 was erected in to a height of 43 meters in 1915, based on plans by the architect Friedrich Puetzer (1871–1922). Other buildings in the neighborhood are Building 36 (today seat of the Jenoptik AG) and Building 59 (Carl Zeiss Jena Research building), likewise designed by Henselmann.

Construction

The architect of the tower was Hermann Henselmann, one of the most famous architects of the former German Democratic Republic

German Democratic Republic

The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...

. The idea of a monolithic tower as an "urban crown" was developed by Bruno Taut

Bruno Taut

Bruno Julius Florian Taut , was a prolific German architect, urban planner and author active during the Weimar period....

, who was city architect in Magdeburg

Magdeburg

Magdeburg , is the largest city and the capital city of the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Magdeburg is situated on the Elbe River and was one of the most important medieval cities of Europe....

 in the 1920s.

Construction began in June 1969, in a residential and business quarter spared by the Second World War. The foundation stone was laid on April 30, 1970. Construction took place in sliding scarf building method, and was completed on October 2, 1972 at the original height of 127 meters. The circular tower is a reinforced concrete

Reinforced concrete

Reinforced concrete is concrete in which reinforcement bars , reinforcement grids, plates or fibers have been incorporated to strengthen the concrete in tension. It was invented by French gardener Joseph Monier in 1849 and patented in 1867. The term Ferro Concrete refers only to concrete that is...

 construction with two basements, a 3.20-meter-thick mat foundation and a diameter of 33 meters.

In 1968–1969 there were also state plans to build a recreation center for VEB Zeiss workers next to the tower. This additional building would have displaced the historical Collegium Jenese cloister

Cloister

A cloister is a rectangular open space surrounded by covered walks or open galleries, with open arcades on the inner side, running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth...

. These plans was scrapped due to protests of the locals, in particular those of microbiologist Hans Knöll

Hans Knöll

Hans Knöll was a German physician and microbiologist. He was the director of the Central Institute of Microbiology and Experimental Therapy in Jena from 1953 to 1976, a member of the Academy of Sciences of the German Democratic Republic , and professor of bacteriology at the University of Jena...

, and due to the poor financial shape of VEB Zeiss at the time. Even the tower itself proved too expensive for VEB Zeiss to maintain, and it was moved into the property of the University of Jena after it was completed, despite the University's protestations.

In 1999 the building was sold to an investor, who completed a modernization in 2001. At this time, two additional floors and a UMTS antenna

Antenna (radio)

An antenna is an electrical device which converts electric currents into radio waves, and vice versa. It is usually used with a radio transmitter or radio receiver...

 were added, and the 28th and 29th floors were converted into a restaurant. At 30 floors and 159 meters, including a spire

Spire

A spire is a tapering conical or pyramidal structure on the top of a building, particularly a church tower. Etymologically, the word is derived from the Old English word spir, meaning a sprout, shoot, or stalk of grass....

 of 37 meters, the building is the tallest in Eastern Germany, and the ninth-highest in Germany.

Use

Jen-Tower was originally planned as an office building for the collective combine Carl Zeiss Jena, but was never used for this purpose. When the building was used by the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, the base of the tower housed the refectory

Refectory

A refectory is a dining room, especially in monasteries, boarding schools and academic institutions. One of the places the term is most often used today is in graduate seminaries...

 of the university.

Double tower

There is a persistent rumor that the original plans included an identical twin tower, which was to be connected with a bridge and binoculars

Binoculars

Binoculars, field glasses or binocular telescopes are a pair of identical or mirror-symmetrical telescopes mounted side-by-side and aligned to point accurately in the same direction, allowing the viewer to use both eyes when viewing distant objects...

 as a symbol for Jena's optical tool-making industry. However, investigations by historians of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena at the beginning of the 90s did not confirm this rumor.

See also

• Oderturm
  Oderturm
  Der Oderturm is a 24-storey high-rise office building in Frankfurt , Germany, built between 1968 and 1976 . It is arguably the tallest office building in Brandenburg, with a mobile telephony mast reaching 95 m; however, its roof height of 89 m is 1 m less than that of the Stern-Plaza in Potsdam,...
  
  
• City-Hochhaus Leipzig
  City-Hochhaus Leipzig
  City-Hochhaus , at a height of 142.5 metres, is the tallest building in the city of Leipzig, and the tallest multistory building erected in the former East Germany. It was designed by architect Hermann Henselmann in the shape of an open book, and built between 1968 and 1972...
  
  
• Park Inn Berlin
  Park Inn Berlin
  The Park Inn by Radisson Berlin Alexanderplatz is the tallest building and the eleventh tallest structure in Berlin and the 29th tallest building and tallest hotel-only building in Germany...
  
  
• Fernsehturm
• Kulturfinger
  Kulturfinger
  The Kulturfinger is the nickname of a steel-framed tower built during the days of the communist German Democratic Republic that is the tallest building in Neubrandenburg, Germany...
  
  

External links

• http://www.intershop-tower.de/content.php?SID=index&LID=9
• http://www.thehighrisepages.de/hhkartei/jenauni.htm