Fim Tower (Orco Tower)
Main data:
Total height: 115 m
Number of floors: 27
Year of construction: 1996
Designers: Lorenzo Martinoia, Jacek Sokalski, Amadeo Strada
Location: Al. Jerozolimskie (Jerozolimskie Avenue) 81
FIM Tower, located on the corner of Chalubinskiego street and Jerozolimskie Avenue was built by an Italian investor from 1992 till 1996. It has 27 floors and is 115 metres high. There are mainly offices inside the building, their area is approximately 15 thousand square metres. A lot of well-known companies rent them, among others Polkomtel Plus GSM. The skyscraper has reportedly the most modern communication equipment in the city. Also, like all modern buildings it is equipped with air-conditioning and all necessary safety systems. 5 fast elevators provide efficient communication between floors.
FIM Tower has an untypical architecture and colours. It looks like it was made of some surfaces that intersect on different angles. Because of that the building looks a bit like a crystal, but on the other hand, it can also give an impression like some part of the building was bitten off. Its colours are dark blue and orange, because of that the building distinguishes much from the surrounding houses. It also arouses much controversy. It was even one of thirteen buildings rated as the ugliest ones in Warsaw in an articles in Wyborcza newspaper. During the building's construction people from one of nearby blocks of flats protested against it. As a result of those protests, a part of the building, that was supposed to be the closest to the streets' intersection was not built.
On 24th of May 1998 the centre's inhabitants could watch an unusual event. A transport helicopter Mi-8 carried on that day two boxes with antennas to the top of FIM Tower. Each of them weighted about one tonne. The pilots' task was extremely hard, because they had to put the boxes on a small extension on the top of the building. But they managed to do that in only 15 minutes.
In 2007 the building was purchased by Luxembourgian company Orco (the same one which builds a skyscraper designed by Daniel Libeskind at Zlota street, in the place where the building of City Center used to stand). The new owner decided to modernise the building. Previously he planned also to rearragne the building's appearence completely. The orange and navy blue elevation was planned to be replaced by completely new one - dark blue, much more elegant. But finally this renovation was made in a bit 'economic' way. The building's interior was renovated, indeed, but from the outside the 'modernisation' ment actually only that the orange fragments of elevation were sealed with navy blue film and a banner with new building's name (Orco Tower) was added. For sure the building's appearence was not improved in this way.
This is how the building used to look like before it was bought by Orco company:
This is how it should look like after the renovation:
And this is how it really looks like today:
(C) 2001-2010 Maciej Blazejewski
