Torre Picasso

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Torre Picasso (Picasso Tower) is a skyscraper located in Madrid, Spain, on Pablo Picasso Square, within the business and commercial complex AZCA next to Paseo de la Castellana, in the financial district of the Spanish capital. It was designed by the American architect of Japanese origin Minoru Yamasaki (who also designed the destroyed World Trade Center in New York).

• Height: 157 m (515 ft) above ground (171 m above the lowest basement)
• Floors: 43 inhabitable floors above ground (ground-floor hall, 42 office floors), 5 basements, 2 upper floors for machinery
• Area: 71,700 m² office space (121,000 m² total)
• Size per floor: 38 m x 50 m
• Elevators: 26 (18 to office floors in 3 groups of 6: 1st-18th floors at 2.5 m/s; 18th-32nd floors at 4 m/s; 32nd-43rd floors at 6 m/s)
• Parking space: 837
• Foreseen population: 6,000 persons
• Daily visitors: 1,500 persons

Construction began in late 1982, and the building was inaugurated in December 1988. Since then, this has been Madrid's tallest building, surpassing Torre de Madrid, but it will be no longer when Torre Espacio is completed. It was also Spain's tallest until recently when it was overtaken by the Gran Hotel Bali in Benidorm (Alicante).

A notable feature of Torre Picasso is the wide entrance arch, supporting the whole façade over it, with an underground steel structure serving to reinforce it. The gap under this arch is covered by a special security glass named STADIP (the one used in Torre Agbar in Barcelona).

This building is currently the property of Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC), S.A.; managed and commercialized by PER Gestora Inmobiliaria, S.L. [1].

It has studios for the Spanish TV channel Canal +. It was featured in the last scenes of Alejandro Amenábar's 1997 film Abre Los Ojos.

Shortly after 9/11, ETA confirmed that in 1999 they had planned to demolish this skyscraper using the 1,700 kg of explosives loaded into two Madrid-bound vans intercepted that year near Calatayud (Zaragoza) by the Spanish Civil Guard (the first stopped en route on December 21st and the second found not far from there the next day; an incident known as "la caravana de la muerte", the caravan of death) (online report with video, in Spanish: [2]).

In August 2004, the Otis Elevator Company was awarded a contract to modernise the elevators in the building, to incorporate some of the most advanced elevator technology available. (press release, in English: [3]).