Santiago Calatrava's Turning Torso in Malmö to receive CTBUH 10-Year Award

Whatever you personally feel toward Santiago Calatrava and his work, his Turning Torso tower in the Swedish city of Malmö continues to make heads turn since its completion in 2005. Most recently, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat awarded their 10-Year Award to the Calatrava-designed building. The international award recognizes a tower's significant contribution to culture and urban iconography, its social role, and its technical development over the last decade. Previous winners in recent years include JAHN's Post Tower in Germany and the 30 St. Mary Axe in London.

Over a decade ago, HSB Malmö commissioned Calatrava to design what would be the world's first twisted tower as a means to revive a decaying industrial district in Malmö. At 57 stories and 623 feet tall, Turning Torso was also Calatrava's first high-rise building.

The 10-Year Award will be presented during the CTBUH 14th Annual Awards Symposium in Chicago at the IIT School of Architecture Crown Hall on November 12.

Read on for more about the project.

"Turning Torso is Calatrava’s first high-rise building and was inspired by his white marble sculpture that evokes the abstraction of the human figure, whereby several cubes revolve around a vertical axis like a torso spinning around a spine. The building’s nine pentagonal sections rotate 90 degrees as it increases in height to form the building’s curved shape. A steel exoskeleton that resembles a spine twisting upward with the structure connects these units. The two lower sections of the building are dedicated to office functions, while the upper seven sections contain a total of 147 residences, with each floor accommodating one to five apartments."

"CTBUH also recognized the Turning Torso for its pioneering sustainable design and for its execution of sustainable industry standards far ahead of its time. One hundred percent of the energy consumed in the building comes from renewable sources, including geothermal, hydro, solar and wind. Each unit has electricity consumption meters, allowing tenants to make more informed decisions regarding the amount of energy they are consuming at any time. In addition, each unit has an organic waste disposal unit that is connected to a series of pipes leading to a municipal biogas facility that converts the material into energy."

'Since this project was announced 15 years ago, architects worldwide have been inspired,' stated Vincent Tse, CTBUH Trustee, CTBUH Technical Awards Juror, and Managing Director of Parsons Brinckerhoff, Building MEP China Region. 'Today, there are more than 30 towers that twist upwards...Looking back at innovations over the past decade, few have had the lasting power and influence of the Turning Torso.'