Weltstadthaus (Köln) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Weltstadthaus housing a department store in Köln

KOLN

KOLN, digital channel 10, is the CBS affiliate in Lincoln, Nebraska. It operates a satellite station, KGIN, on digital channel 11 in Grand Island. KGIN repeats all KOLN programming, but airs separate commercials...

, 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...

, was designed by Renzo Piano

Renzo Piano

Renzo Piano is an Italian architect. He is the recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, AIA Gold Medal, Kyoto Prize and the Sonning Prize...

and completed in 2005, following a lengthy legal battle concerning the structural engineering of the core building. It covers up a main traffic artery, the Nord-Süd-Fahrt, and faces Europe's most frequented shopping mile, the Schildergasse

Schildergasse

The Schildergasse is a shopping street in central Cologne, Germany, and with 13,000 people passing through every hour, it is the busiest shopping street in Europe...

Overview

With its unusual, organic shape reminiscent of a ship, but also of a stranded whale -- Kölners have dubbed it the Walfisch -- it provides 14.400 m² floor space, on a length of 130 m and a width of 60 m. The atrium

Atrium (architecture)

In modern architecture, an atrium is a large open space, often several stories high and having a glazed roof and/or large windows, often situated within a larger multistory building and often located immediately beyond the main entrance doors...

offers a view of five stories with a height of 36 m. The 4900 m² glass façade

Facade

A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....

is constructed from 6800 individual panes and 66 massive laminated

Glued laminated timber

Glued laminated timber, also called Glulam, is a type of structural timber product composed of several layers of dimensioned timber bonded together with durable, moisture-resistant adhesives. This material is called 'laminating stock' or lamstock for short.By laminating several smaller pieces of...

beams of Siberian Larch. The northern façade consists of 4.400 m² of natural stone

Dimension stone

Dimension stone is natural stone or rock that has been selected and fabricated to specific sizes or shapes. Color, texture and pattern, and surface finish of the stone are also normal requirements...

.

Wedged between a late Gothic church, the Antoniterkirche, and nondescript post-war concrete, it consists of two distinct parts. A rectangular block of stone takes up the rhythms of the surrounding seventies' angular forms, while the partially encircling wood-and-glass construction flows toward the church that had looked somewhat displaced previously.
Municipal regulations prevent the cupola

Cupola

In architecture, a cupola is a small, most-often dome-like, structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome....

from being accessible to the general public, but it is opened on special occasions. The department store is operated by the German chain Peek & Cloppenburg

Peek & Cloppenburg

Peek & Cloppenburg is an international chain of fashion department stores. The chain is made up of two separate groups, Peek & Cloppenburg KG Düsseldorf and Peek & Cloppenburg KG Hamburg which operate independently from each other.-History:In 1869, Johann Theodor Peek and Heinrich Anton Adolph...

, who commissioned the Piano design, which has won several prizes.
From P&C's point of view, this is one in a series of Weltstadthäuser, each designed by a different architect: in
Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

(Gottfried Böhm

Gottfried Böhm

Gottfried Böhm is a German architect.Böhm was born into a family of architects in Offenbach, Hessen. His father, Dominikus Böhm, is renowned for having built several churches throughout Germany. His grandfather was also an architect. After graduating from Technical University of Munich in 1946, he...

),
Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

(Richard Meier

Richard Meier

Richard Meier is an American architect, whose rationalist buildings make prominent use of the color white.- Biography :Meier is Jewish and was born in Newark, New Jersey...

),
Frankfurt

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

(RKW Rhode Kellermann Wawrowsky),
Köln

KOLN

(Renzo Piano

Renzo Piano

Renzo Piano is an Italian architect. He is the recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, AIA Gold Medal, Kyoto Prize and the Sonning Prize...

),
Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

(Moore Ruble Yudell),
Mannheim

Mannheim

Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....

(Richard Meier

Richard Meier

Richard Meier is an American architect, whose rationalist buildings make prominent use of the color white.- Biography :Meier is Jewish and was born in Newark, New Jersey...

again),
Stuttgart

Stuttgart

Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....

(Josef Paul Kleihues

Josef Paul Kleihues

Josef Paul Kleihues was a German architect, most notable for his decades long contributions to the "critical reconstruction" of Berlin...

),
Wien

Wien

Wien is the German language name for Vienna, the city and federal state in Austria.* Wien , in Vienna, Austria* Theater an der Wien, a theater in Vienna located at the former river WienWien may also refer to:...

(David Chipperfield

David Chipperfield

Sir David Alan Chipperfield CBE, RA, RDI, RIBA is a British architect, born in London. He has offices in London, Berlin and Milan, and a representative office in Shanghai...

, under construction).

Overview

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