DZ Bank Berlin
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Location:
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Pariser Platz 3
Berlin
10117
Germany
coordinates:
52.5154457 13.3790245
Building names(s): DZ Bank Berlin
Architect/Designer: Frank Gehry
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Completion date: 1999
Function: bank
Completed in June 1999, DZ Bank is a 20,000-square-meter (215,000-square-foot) multi-use center that includes a five-story office building with a conference center and a 10-story luxury condominium building. The development is located on a one-half hectare (1.2-acre) site near Brandenburg Gate and adjacent to the future U.S. Embassy. DZ Bank features a large skylit atrium in the office building. A three-dimensional curved fire wall and a smaller atrium separate the office building/conference area from the condominium. The exterior of the building is clad in a yellow Italian limestone (Pietra di Vincenza) and features deeply recessed windows.Last modified: 3 June, 2011 | Suggested By Ciara

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The DZ Bank building (formerly DG Bank building) is an office, conference, and residential building located at Pariser Platz 3 in Berlin. It was designed by architect Frank Gehry and engineered by Hans Schober of Schlaich Bergermann & Partner. Construction began in 1998 and was completed in 2000.
The building is mixed-use. Facing the Brandenburg Gate are offices, the headquarters of Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsbank. On the other side, facing Behrenstraße, are 39 residential apartments. Between the two is a large atrium, designed to be used as a conference or performance space. This is covered with a sophisticated glass-grid roof, curved in a complex form typical of Gehry’s designs.
This freeform sculptural glass roof over the atrium of the DZ-Bank was designed by F.O. Gehry as a sculpture intervening with the interior. The single layer shell structure is made of a triangular grid stiffened by spoked wheels at 16 m intervals. The entire structure is made of stainless steel mullions 40 x 60 mm.
The Berlin branch offices of the DZ Bank is one of the most interesting buildings from Frank O. Gehry. Rigid building regulations for the centre of Berlin ruled out the possibility of a sculptural shell like that in Bilbao. This ‘typical Gehry trademark’ is therefore located in the atrium: a glass, airship-like roof and expressive built-in features contrast with the strictness of the solid building structure.