Turning Torso
Interesting facts
- The tower cost about 1.8 billion Swedish kronor, more than double its original budget of around 800 million.
- In August 2006 the Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner parachuted onto the Turning Torso and then BASE-jumped off it.
- Its top floor sits at roughly 179 metres, while the building rose more than twice as high as Malmö's previous tallest, the 86-metre Kronprinsen.
- Each of the nine stacked segments is built on a pentagonal floor plan, and the whole tower twists clockwise as it rises.
- It held the title of tallest building in the Nordic countries for 17 years, until Gothenburg's Karlatornet overtook it in 2022.
- Construction formally started on 14 February 2001, and the tower was inaugurated on 27 August 2005.
- Five elevators serve the 54 floors, with conference rooms occupying the two highest storeys.
- The tower was built by the Swedish construction firm NCC and holds about 27,500 square metres of floor space.
Why it is worth it
The Turning Torso turns a residential tower into sculpture. Santiago Calatrava based it on one of his own works, a white marble piece called Twisting Torso that suggests a human body turning at the waist, and translated it into nine blocks of five storeys each, stacked around a central core and rotated one after another so that the top stands a full 90 degrees from the base. At 190 metres and 54 storeys, it was the tallest building in the Nordic countries when it opened in 2005.
The tower was built by the housing cooperative HSB, which still owns it: the lowest two segments hold offices and the upper seven some 147 apartments, so this is a lived-in building rather than a corporate trophy. Construction began in 2001, and it rose in the Western Harbour, Malmö's former shipyard district, just as the city's old industrial symbol, the giant Kockums crane, was dismantled. The new silhouette took its place on the skyline almost literally, and the district around it was rebuilt as a quarter of housing, parks and waterside promenades.
What makes the tower remarkable is how different it looks from every angle. From the waterfront it seems to corkscrew; from the side it leans; close up, the stepped edges of each twisted block catch the light differently. It won the Emporis Skyscraper Award in the year it opened and a ten-year award from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat in 2015. The walk along the Western Harbour boardwalk, with Copenhagen and the Øresund Bridge on the horizon, is the best way to see it.
Getting there
The Turning Torso stands in the Western Harbour (Västra hamnen) district, about 2 km from central Malmö and within walking distance of the old town. Copenhagen Airport (CPH) is about 20 km away across the Øresund, and Malmö Airport (MMX) about 27 km.
Plan your visit
We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.
Nearby places
- Den Blå Planet, Copenhagen 20.4 km · public-aquarium
- Church of Our Saviour 25.0 km · church
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Turning Torso is a neo-futurist residential skyscraper built in Malmö, Sweden, in 2005. It was the tallest building in the Nordic region until September 2022, when it was surpassed by Karlatornet in Gothenburg. Located on the Swedish side of the Öresund strait, it was built and is owned by Swedish cooperative housing association HSB. It is regarded as the second twisted skyscraper in the world to receive the title after Telekom Tower in Malaysia.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
55.61333, 12.97639per Wikidata