Formerly: Generale Bank Built: 1996 Designed by: Murphy/Jahn Type: Skyscraper Stories: 30 Maximum Height: 341 feet / 104 meters Location: Blaak 555, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
A nother piece of unique Rotterdam architecture. From some angles, this wafer of a building appears almost ready to fall over. The crown affair at the top looks much like a wave cresting and ready to crash down on the people below. What makes this precarious balancing act possible is the mass of offices attached to the building's backside. Not only does it provide reassurance to the eye that the building is more substantial than it seems, but it also fills the requirements of the laws of physics and keeps the building from becoming a giant domino. The counterbalance doesn't go all the way to the ground. It stands on legs to protect a building from 1642 -- one of the few that survived the German bombings of the second World War.
