Post Tower

Post Tower
	Post tower with base
Basic data
Place:	Bonn , Rheinaue
Construction time :	2000-2002
Architectural style :	postmodern
Architects :	Murphy and Jahn
Use / legal
Usage :	Corporate headquarters
Owner :	German Post AG
Technical specifications
Height :	162.5 m
Floors :	41 upper floors ; 5 lower floors
Elevators :	19th
Usable area :	107,000 m²
Floor area :	7,000 m²
Building material :	Steel , concrete , glass
Building-costs:	€ 78 million
Height comparison
Bonn :	1. ( list )
Germany :	12. ( list )
Europe :	60. ( list )
address
City:	Bonn
Country:	Germany

The Post Tower in Bonn is the headquarters of the logistics group Deutsche Post DHL Group (previously Deutsche Post World Net) with its combined divisions Deutsche Post and DHL . At 162.5 meters, it is the tallest German skyscraper outside of Frankfurt am Main and the eleventh tallest in Germany.

Building details

The skyscraper is located on the banks of the Rhine on the edge of the Rheinauenpark in the Gronau district and thus in the center of the federal quarter . It has 41 upper and 5 lower floors. The tower was constructed using a modern steel and glass construction. On each floor there are steel composite columns with a diameter of 760 mm in the foyer and 406 mm on each subsequent floor. The base has the shape of two circular segments offset by 7.4 meters .

Between the floors there are a total of four so-called sky gardens, which are large connecting platforms between the two building segments, the north and south towers. The roof of the conference center consists of a single curved steel girder grid made of hollow profiles. This is held in place by steel supports. The conference building is covered with stainless steel and glass panels. The roof arches down on the northwest side and thus becomes a facade. There are smaller connecting platforms on the other floors. There are 1,000 vehicle parking spaces in the base of the Post Tower, which goes underground.

In the roof area there is a circumferential facade approx. 12 meters high. The wind loads are absorbed by oval steel supports. Behind the facade there is a roof garden as well as a penthouse in which meetings of the post office take place. There are 12 high-speed and additional elevators for fast passenger transport. The elevator operation ( destination selection control ) is characterized by the fact that the desired destination floor is entered outside at one of several terminals. A heuristic optimization then returns the letter identifier of the assigned elevator.

The façade, made of white glass, has two layers. Between the two shells there is a space around 1.5 meters wide. The facade enables ventilation via control flaps . The supporting structure for the facade consists of stainless steel profiles. 4,500 km of electrical cables had to be laid. Other modern concepts make the building particularly energy-saving. This also includes a groundwater-based cooling system, which flows into a lake that has been created for this purpose and faces the Rhine .

Glass is the preferred building material for the Bonn building and is intended to symbolize the rebalancing of “openness” in the corporate culture . Office walls, doors, partitions and floors are - as far as possible - made of transparent or frosted glass.

On the roof of one are post horn (to the southwest) and a DHL - Logo attached (to the northeast).

Post Tower entrance
Interior view between the tower halves of the Post Tower

history

Post Tower in the evening

The Post Tower was planned by the architects Murphy and Jahn ( Chicago ) with the help of Werner Sobek ( Stuttgart ).

The skyscraper was built in just two and a half years, from 2000 to 2002, for around 78 million euros. Deutsche Post AG then moved its headquarters from the building of the former Post Office on Robert-Schuman-Platz to the building. Several locations were also merged, which Swiss Post promised to optimize. A total of 2000 employees moved into the building. The construction of this high-rise was politically controversial in Bonn, after all, the city council approved the construction with a majority. In particular from the ranks of the CDU and the Greens there were dissenting votes. The opponents of the design attached importance to the existence of the Bonn cityscape, in the silhouette of which there should not be any other high-rise next to the " Langen Eugen " - originally only intended as a temporary measure .

At the Emporis Skyscraper Award 2002, the Post Tower took second place out of 350 nominated buildings.

The exterior lighting of the building was controversial: on the facade there are color-changing spotlights from Martin Professional and 1,925 lights with three high-voltage fluorescent tubes each in the colors red, yellow and blue (a total of 5,775 tubes) from LTW Lichttechnisches Werk with 1,925 dimmer boxes from Toni Chestnuts mounted. This allows the facade to glow in changing colors at night, which makes some neighbors feel disturbed. For a while, the Post Tower shone steadily in different colors (blue, red or yellow) without the blinking effects that have since been reactivated. At the time of the main bird migration from March to May and from August to November, the lighting has been switched to blue since 2008, limited to 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. and supplemented by moving bird silhouettes. At Christmas, the lights represent a Christmas tree with candles. The lighting is also flexible on other occasions: a cross was displayed during World Youth Day 2005 , the Post Tower displayed a soccer ball for the 2006 World Cup , a portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven for the 2006 international Beethoven Festival, a polling cross for the 2009 Bundestag election , to encourage people to vote, the FIFA World Cup trophy after Germany's final victory at the 2014 World Cup .

Post Tower under construction (February 2002)
Post Tower under construction (February 2002)
Nocturnal lighting in the run-up to Christmas (2009)

Artwork in front of the Post Tower

The sculptural group is in front of the building in Bonn's Rheinaue since early March 2007 Women De Formation of Tina Schwichtenberg . Mercurius , a bronze figure by Markus Lüpertz , was unveiled on July 3, 2007 .

Tina Schwichtenberg: Women De Formation
Markus Lüpertz: Mercurius

Others

Once a year, on the open day , parts of the building are accessible to the general public. This is especially true for the “visitor floor” on the 30th floor.

At the Post Tower Run & Family Day, which usually takes place in May, Group employees and their families work for a good cause. For every kilometer run, Deutsche Post DHL donates one euro to a non-profit organization. The start is at the Post Tower, adults can cover a distance of 5 or 10 km through Bonn's Rheinaue . The children run 400 or 800 meters, depending on their age.

The accessible roof area of the Post Tower (approx. 210 m above sea level ) is about 15 meters higher than the undeveloped highest elevation in the city of Bonn, the Paffelsberg ( 195.3 m ).

The Post Tower is also known to fans of the former TV series Verbotene Liebe as the headquarters of the “Lahnstein Holding”.

Observation deck on the boardroom (2003)
Way to the garage parking spaces of the Post Tower.
Aerial photograph (2010)
Vertical view from the south
German vending machine brand since October 24, 2008
View from the south to the Post Tower

literature

Werner Blaser : Post Tower. Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel 2003, ISBN 3-7643-6990-6 .
project report: POST TOWER IN BONN, VIA Verlag (publishing house for innovations in architecture), 2003