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Ambitious hotel marks Copenhagen on the international conference scene
Recently proclaimed 'best city in the world to live in' by Monocle, a leading lifestyle magazine, and hosting the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009, Copenhagen insists on challenging much bigger world cities.
The spectacular Bella Hotel by 3XN architects aims to cement Copenhagen’s position as the natural centre for international events. The hotel is a part of the Bella Center, a leading conference complex with facilities to host any type of event, including fairs, exhibitions, meetings and international conferences.
Bella Hotel is the largest building work initiated in Denmark in 2008 and will be one of the largest hotels in Scandinavia. Arne Bang Mikkelsen, CEO at Bella Center, stressed that the location of the hotel will be truly unique – in the middle of a metropolis with only five minutes to an international airport, a bridge to the rest of Scandinavia and Europe, together with a motorway, metro and bus right to the door.
This autumn the two towers of Bella Hotel, 76.5 m each, will climb towards the sky, inclining in opposite directions. The architects have ensured that the buildings appear in a nuanced way depending on distance, light and season. The top twist on one of the towers decreases problems with turbulence in the flat, windy landscape. Kim Herforth Nielsen, Principal Architect at 3XN, explains the leaning shapes:
“The challenge was to construct two towers with only one projection to enable the establishment of a single joint foyer. The tilted design of the towers came about by virtue of us wanting to create a view from both sides of both towers."
She elaborates: “It is in fact a vertical bearing construction, in which both towers are tilted into a cantilever shape. It was very important for us to show the developer, that construction was not necessarily to be much pricier due to the manner of tilting the sides. Construction costs – which only make up a part of the total costs – only went up 5 per cent.“
The four-star Bella Hotel will provide 814 rooms, 32 conference rooms, 3 restaurants, a sky bar and a wellness centre. The foundation stone to Bella Hotel was laid September 17, and the first phase will be completed in spring 2011. Viktorija Maksimo
Reporter
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