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Essen City Hall
Essen City Hall (German: Rathaus Essen) is a 23-storey, 106 m (348 ft) skyscraper in Essen, Germany. When completed on 1 July 1979, it was one of the tallest city halls in Europe and is currently after New Town Hall (Leipzig) and Hamburg City Hall the third tallest city hall in Germany. From the 22nd floor at a height of around 100 meters, a visitor area offers a view over the city and part of the Ruhr area. The building has the floor plan of a Y, but its view is impaired by the subsequent addition of several escape staircases, which had to be attached to the outside on the north and east sides as they had not been taken into account in the planning. 60,000 cubic meters of concrete, 6,500 tons of structural steel and over 360 kilometers of power cables were used in the construction of the building. In addition, 15,000 fluorescent lamps, 3,285 windows and 2,100 doors were installed. The 330,000 cubic meters of enclosed space contain 69,000 square meters of office space, a parliamentary area, over 700 parking spaces in a multi-storey underground car park, the theater in the town hall, which opened on the first floor in 1991, and various technical rooms. The town hall offers around 1900 workplaces. The sandstone sculptures of Saints Cosmas and Damian, created by Heinrich Kröger, who are also the patron saints of the city of Essen, which were already in the stepped gable of the old town hall on the market square, are located in the entrance area of the town hall in the town hall gallery. On October 24, 2018, the entire building had to be evacuated for the first time. The reason for this was that it was no longer safe to travel due to a total power failure caused by a technical defect. The emergency lighting, emergency elevators and telephone system were also affected. Operations were resumed the following day after the fault had been rectified.[4] ReferencesExternal links
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