BHF-Bank-Hochhaus, Bank building in Frankfurt, Germany
The BHF-Bank-Hochhaus is a bank building in Frankfurt's Westend district that rises 23 stories and 82 meters (269 feet) into the air. Its facade displays a regular pattern of horizontal window strips separated by dark parapet panels that run across the entire surface.
Sep Ruf designed the tower, built 1962–65 in reinforced concrete with a 25 × 25 m square plan, and at 82 m and 23 storeys it was Frankfurt's tallest building when it opened. The Berliner Handels-Gesellschaft, founded in Berlin in 1856, moved its headquarters to Frankfurt in 1948 and only occupied the finished tower after its 1970 merger with the Frankfurter Bank formed the BHF-Bank. In the 1990s the bank's plan to replace it with a larger new building was refused; the city listed the tower as a monument instead, and the bank expanded in Offenbach. Oddo & Cie took over in 2010, and Oddo BHF left the building at the end of 2023.
The tower stands on the western edge of the Rothschildpark, an area almost entirely destroyed in the Second World War before the bank built here. Its name recalls the 1970 merger of the Berliner Handels-Gesellschaft, founded in Berlin in 1856 and moved to Frankfurt in 1948, with the Frankfurter Bank to form the BHF-Bank. The bank occupied the building only after that merger created a need for more office space.
The complex at Bockenheimer Landstraße 10 in the Westend is being redeveloped as Central Parx, with a "Tower", "Studio" and "Pavillon"; completion is planned for early 2028. Oddo BHF moved out at the end of 2023, so the building is no longer a bank headquarters and is not open to visitors. The Brückenschlag sculpture stands on the street in front of the high-rise.
In front of the building stands a bronze sculpture called Brückenschlag that is made from 60,000 meters of bronze wire and weighs about 10 tons. This art installation creates an unexpected link between the tower's modern architecture and public art in the square.
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