UP TO THE SKY – Hearst Tower - Films

Trilogie, 3x26min
Hearst Tower, New York
Turning Torso, Malmö
Torre Agbar, Barcelona

Synopsis

3x26min or78 min
Part one: Hearst Tower, New York
Part two: Turning Torso, Malmoe
Part three: Torre Agbar, Barcelona
This is architecture for the 21st century. The series Up to the Sky presents three of the latest and outstanding skyscrapers. Three new towers in New York, Malmö and Barcelona that have set new standards in world architecture.
Never before have so many skyscrapers have been built like in the first decade of the 21st century. Thanks to computer technology, today calculations and constructions have been made possible that were unthinkable some years ago. World-famous European architects like Norman Foster, Jean Nouvel and Santiago Calatrava know how to handle these new technologies. With their new buildings, the look of skyscraper has changed forever. Their new towers have nothing in common with the rectangular high-rise building in Bauhaus design. Playful, sculptural and exciting – what used to be an abstract sculpture in a museum, today is rising up hundreds of meters into the sky.
Meet Sir Norman Foster, Santiago Calatrava and Jean Nouvel. And see the Hearst Tower in New York, the Turning Torso in Malmö and the Torre Agbar in Barcelona.

• HEARST TOWER, NEW YORK
New York, the city of skyscrapers. In the midst of this skyline one new tower is creating a furore. It is the Hearst Tower, built by the British architect Norman Foster. Norman Foster’s high-rise has been standing on the edge of Central Park since the end of 2006. The Hearst Tower rises 182 meters into the sky. A rather modest height. And soon this small-scale skyscraper may be overlooked on the dense New York skyline. If it were not for its facade! It looks like a polished diamond in the middle of the skyline. The Hearst Tower is New York’s first green skyscraper. The facade’s diagonal grid pattern, the so-called diagrid structure, consumes 20 per cent less steel than a comparable construction. The structure is efficient – and it is also extremely elegant.
“The most beautiful new skyscraper in Manhattan since 1967”, praised him the “New Yorker”.

• TURNING TORSO, MALMOE
The Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava is a man of many talents. Painter, sculptor, architect and engineer, he switches effortlessly between the forms of expression. All of his talents came together when he designed his first skyscraper. The Turning Torso has been standing on the edge of the southern Swedish city of Malmö since 2005. It turns 90 degrees around its own axis and, in doing so, screws itself up to a height of 190 meters. Everything is curved and oblique. The laws of gravity seem to be cancelled. From the beginning the Turning Torso was planned as a residential building. Anyone can move in here, for it contains perfectly normal rented flats. But inside the Turning Torso there is no such thing as a right angle. Sculpture, movement, statics, construction. Everything comes together in the Turning Torso. A skyscraper for the 21st century. And the new landmark of the city of Malmö.

• TORRE AGBAR, BARCELONA
The Torre Agbar looks like a rocket that is about to take off into space. A simple geometric gesture – and a design by the French architect Jean Nouvel.
A skyscraper which seems to come out of the future. Its silhouette has dominated the cityscape of Barcelona since 2005. Jean Nouvel designed a tower which seems to shoot up expressively. At night the Torre Agbar becomes a luminous work of art, a glowing fixed point in the pulsating metropolis. 4500 light-emitting diodes bathe it in artificial blue and red, visible from afar.
The poetry of this nocturnal lighthouse dominates the whole city. The Torre Agbar has become an urban event which long since seems to be inseparably joined with Barcelona, by day and by night.

UP TO THE SKY – Hearst Tower

ongoing series: Hearst Tower, Turning Torso, Torre Agbar

UP TO THE SKY – Hearst Tower

ongoing series: Hearst Tower, Turning Torso, Torre Agbar

UP TO THE SKY – Hearst Tower

ongoing series: Hearst Tower, Turning Torso, Torre Agbar