Mode Gakuen Spiral Towers, Educational skyscraper near Nagoya Station, Japan
Mode Gakuen Spiral Towers is a 170-meter-tall school facility in Nagoya with 36 floors whose distinctive double spiral design is made of glass and steel. The building contains classrooms, computer labs, pattern-making and sewing workshops, and photo studios for training in fashion and design.
The tower was completed on 25 March 2008 on the site of the former Nagoya Mitsui Building South and East wings, a redevelopment in front of Nagoya Station. The Japan Education Foundation acquired the ownership stake, while Mitsui Fudosan manages only the lower commercial floors. During construction, on 6 June 2007, a 3.5-metre, 100-kilogram steel beam fell from the 32nd floor onto the ground, damaging the building and road but injuring no one.
The name comes from the spiral form, which the designers said shows students of different fields twisting and rising together before leaving for society. The building houses Nagoya Mode Gakuen, HAL Nagoya, Nagoya Isen and Nagoya International College of Engineering. In front stands Florian Claar's trumpet-shaped monument Movement No.7 Minotos, which doubles as an air intake and carries the school's neon sign.
The tower stands at the Nagoya Station end of Meieki 4-chome, on the former site of the Nagoya Mitsui Building's south and east wings. Floors 1 and B1–B2 hold the Spiral Towers SHOP & RESTAURANTS commercial area, and B3 is a multi-storey car park. The schools occupy floors 1 to 36.
The trumpet-shaped monument at the entrance, "Movement No.7 Minotos" by German sculptor Florian Claar, doubles as an air-supply tower, and the school's name is mounted on it in neon tubes. Each triangular glass panel on the twisting facade is a different size.
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