A view of the Sky - Extravagent hull of glass
The concerted development and production of sun-protective glazing by innoverre, HERO-GLAS and OKALUX
The area in the centre of Frankfurt on which the MyZeil Shopping Centre planned by Italian star architect Massimiliana Fuksas and opened on February 26, 2009 is located is called the PalaisQuartier. In addition to the MyZeil, a 135 meter high office tower, the nearly 100 meter high Jumeirah Frankfurt Hotel, and the reconstruction of the Thurn and Taxis Palais will be completed on the 1.7 hectare large premises by 2010.
Mr Fuksas, who has been working internationally out of his office in Frankfurt since 1997, distributed the 47,000 square meter sales area with almost 100 shops over six floors encasing his design in a prismatic-divided glass hull supporting structure of sun-protective insulating glass. The effortlessly flowing movement of this hull is compelling. Compared to the other buildings dating from the 1950s in Frankfurt’s centre , MyZeil definately stands out; although the verve of Fukshas’ design suggests a creative connection to the rounded form of the kidney-shaped tables so typical of the 1950s. The opening in the roof, which extends to the ground floor, adds an extraordinary touch. The nearly 15,000 square meter large glass construction perforates the building like a crystallized tornado so that part of the sky can be beheld from all floors.
About 3,500 triangularly shaped glass panes were needed for the glass supporting structure. Each pane was cut to fit expressly in its foreseen place. Since the façade extends from the exterior to the interior, ten different types of glass in different build-ups were required. This was the only way to meet the requirements of the different climatic situations.
The innoverre GmbH & Co.KG was responsible for the structural, energetic, and light-technical development of the glass panes, as well as for the extensive production and assembly logistics. The panes were cut, tempered, and laminated by the HERO-GLAS GmbH. The glass build-up at MyZeil consists of a float toughened heat soak-tested pane with Vision 50 in a thickness of 10 mm and a laminated glass of 2 x heat strengthened 8 mm with an interlayer of 1.52 mm pvb-foil. HERO-Glas is one of the few European companies that can process layers which can be tempered of up to 12 mm. OKALUX, a specialist for functional glass, bonded the individual panes.
The steel construction consisting of more than 10,000 individual beams had to be pre-fabricated for the most part due to the limited amount of space on the building site. Assembling the panes proved to be a special challenge. Mountain climbers were needed to mount them on the inaccessible points. To complicate things more, each of the 3,500 OKATHERM panes had to be placed in the correct order of assembly since they were not interchangeable due to the individual cut of the glazing.
The crystal tornado literally sucks the passersby into the building. In this way, MyZeil has developed into an attractive magnet for the 13,000 people who walk along the Frankfurter Zeil every hour.
