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South Tower (Brussels)

Skyscraper in Brussels, Belgium

Summary

Skyscraper in Brussels, Belgium

Field	Value
name	South Tower
native_name
alternate_names	Midi Tower
status	Completed
image	Tour du midi.jpg
caption	The South Tower seen from the Place Victor Horta/Victor Hortaplein
building_type	Government offices
architectural_style	Modernism
location	Avenue Paul-Henri Spaak / Paul-Henri Spaaklaan
location_town	1060 Saint-Gilles, Brussels-Capital Region
location_country	Belgium
owner	Belgian Pensions Administration
coordinates
start_date
completion_date
cost	BEF 1.4 billion
renovation_date	1995–1996
antenna_spire	171 m
roof	150 m
floor_count
floor_area	85,630 m²
architect	Michel Jaspers & Partners
references

The South Tower or Midi Tower (; ) is a 38-storey, 150 m office skyscraper built between 1962 and 1967 in Brussels, Belgium. The tower is the tallest building in Belgium, and was the tallest in the European Economic Community (EEC) upon completion, until it was surpassed by Tour Montparnasse in Paris in 1972.

The South Tower stands adjacent to Brussels-South railway station. The building's façade was reclad in 1995–96 with unitised glass panels using double glass solarbel silver, and it can accommodate about 2,500 office workers. It was built for the Belgian Federal Pensions Service (FPS), which still occupies it today, and it is thus often also called the Pensions Tower (; ).

History

Construction began in 1962 and ended in 1967, as part of the Brusselisation of the 1960s and 1970s in Belgium. The technique used to build the South Tower was bold and unique. Each floor of the tower is suspended from a base that forms the central core of the tower.

This central core contains the staircases, lifts, toilets, and other technical rooms. It occupies 40% of the building's surface area, leaving 60% for office space. Furthermore, the base does not rest on the ground but on foundations equipped with jacks capable of righting the tower in the event of an earthquake. The building has 37 floors supported by main beams attached to the central core like branches clinging to their trunk. There are 144 of these beams, each 40 m long and weighing 40 t.

This technique eliminates the need for columns, freeing up large usable spaces. The main beams are alternated between even and odd floors to avoid connection problems at their intersections. These beams were prestressed during their manufacture using a technique developed by the engineer Lipski: Preflex. This technique is used to prevent deformations due to the weight of the floors. Like the Berlaymont building (housing the European Commission's offices), the tower is anchored to the ground only by its central core. Exposed at its base to a height of 8 m, it is surrounded by basins whose water supplies the air conditioning cooling system for the lower floors.

Metal sculptures by Jean-Pierre Ghysels and Jacques Moeschal animate the water jets with successive bursts. A low, very long, three-storey building (the "Block B") is connected to it by a walkway (which thus joins the second floor of each of the buildings). In 1996, renovation work began on the building. The glass façades were replaced and the interior was brought up to current standards: asbestos was removed and the electrical system was upgraded. The reception area and visitor space were also modernised.

Gallery

File:Brussel Zuid 1996 10.jpg|The South Tower seen from Brussels-South railway station in 1996, with a Thalys in the foreground File:Bruxelles - Tour du Midi.jpg|The South Tower seen from the Palace of Justice on the Place Poelaert/Poelaertplein File:20170418 Fontaine Tour du Midi Bruxelles.jpg|The water feature at the bottom of the tower File:ConstructionRVP.jpg|Vignette with sketches of the construction timelapse

References

Citations

Bibliography

References

{{CTBUH. 4101
"Emporis building ID 108924". [[Emporis]].
{{SkyscraperPage. 237
{{Structurae. 20014387
"Belgium’s highest office tower". Visit Brussels.
"SFPD".
"All pension services now located in the South Tower".
"La Tour du Midi, la plus haute de Belgique, fête ses 50 ans".
"Minister Lalieux wil Zuidertoren renoveren voor 140 miljoen euro".
"Adresse du service fédéral pensions.".
Michelle Lamensch. (1994-01-22). "Michel Demaret en faits divers un week-end moyen a Blankenberge, avec la famille". [[Le Soir]].
"Tour du Midi Avenue Paul-Henri Spaak 2 4". Brussels-Capital Region Inventory of architectural heritage.
"A €141 million renovation for the Tour du Midi". [[L'Echo]].

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

saint-gilles,-belgium skyscraper-office-buildings-in-brussels buildings-and-structures-completed-in-1967 office-buildings-completed-in-1967 commercial-buildings-completed-in-1967 1967-establishments-in-belgium

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