Frankfurt am Main Off The Beaten Path Tips by codrutz

Justice statue in not blindfolded

Observe that in Frankfurt Justice is not blindfolded

Night view from the base...The... Skyscrapers Review

Night view from the base...The yellowish light is interesting, especially when the sky is clouded

Six elevators with outside view Skyscrapers Review

Commerzbank building has six of it's elevators with outside view. They sure are FASSSST :)

Inside CoBa's HQ: The Sky Gardens Skyscrapers Review

The great architect of the Commerzbank building, that I mostly admire - Sir Norman Foster - conceived the sky gardens as a fundamental element in his conception. In spiral form, nine sky gardens rise up to the tower - three each facing eastwards, southwards and westwards. Beside being more than and estethic and relaxing place to be during break time, the gardens reflects three different types of vegetation:

Eastward-facing: Asian vegetation
Southward-facing: Mediterranean vegetation
Westward-facing: North American vegetation

The four storeyes high gardens provides also daylight for the inner offices. The nine gardens are also a place for communication purposes and for breaks, creating a feeling of opennes and space. This gardens are one of the higlights that I love about this building.

Inside CoBa's HQ: The Big Carpet Skyscrapers Review

The reception hall - The Lobby - is dominated by a wall towering 20m (65 feet) high, which inevitably catches the visitors eye. So, Sir Norman Foster and the owners of the building entrusted to an artist the job to cover it. The winning design was a project by Thomas Emde, a young artist established in Frankfurt. Emde created a clouded sky for this wall measuring 16,80 m by 12,35m (roughly 55 x 40 feet), which makes the painting the largest ever conceived in the history of art. The coloured fleece presented at Commerzbank was composed on the computer from a multitude of individual clouds and applied to 80 lenghts of film each measuring 220 x 132 m (715 x 430 feet) via a phototechnical procedure. These motifs were aplied by means of sandblasting to coat 24 individual glass planes. In a work process over several weeks, the complete format was then combined by applying countless extremely thin layers of paint to these matrices, thus shaping small, prominent "stalagmites" standing out from the surface about 5mm. The fleece is thus composed of 9,5 milion of these tiny stalagmites which convey its characteristic spacial impression. Depending on the visitors position in the hall, the fleece shifts clouds and colors, from brilliant yellow, red, violet, to blue or turquoise.

Inside CoBa's HQ: Sculptures Skyscrapers Review

The lobby of the Commerzbank building at Kaizerplatz hosts also some sculptures by the american J.Seward Johnson, Jr.. The three life-sized (as you can see in the picture), entitled "Nice to see You", "Keeping Up" and "Second-Hand Information" (the one I'm also getting second-hand info), are positioned in the lobby as if they were part of the daily scene. By example, "Keeping Up" is a man cleaning the windows at the entrance to the lobby.

INSIDE COMMERZBANK'S HEADQUARTER Skyscrapers Review

I will share with you in the "Off the beaten path" section some insights about the Commerzbank building, because I guess no regular tourist will enter the headquarter of the bank, but I advise you should do so while in Frankfurt, because this building has some interesting surprises to offer.

One of the bridges over Main... Main River Review

One of the bridges over Main River

The clock of the City Hall

Look closely..notice something...

Look closely..notice something beside the Bull? :)) It's Kofi from Ghana :) a real challenger