The story of Turning Torso

The idea for this twisting tower began with a sculpture. In 1999, Johnny Örbäck, then managing director of the housing association HSB Malmö, saw Santiago Calatrava's white marble sculpture Twisting Torso, based on the form of a twisting human being, in a brochure.

He then travelled to Zurich to ask Calatrava for a residential building based on the idea of twisting cubes. The result rises 190 metres in nine segments of five-storey pentagons that turn relative to each other, so the top is twisted 90 degrees clockwise from the ground floor.

The tower also filled a gap in the skyline: in 2002 the Kockums Crane, used for shipbuilding and a symbol of the city's blue-collar roots, had been removed, and local politicians wanted a new symbol for Malmö. It opened on 27 August 2005 and was the tallest building in the Nordic region until September 2022. On 18 August 2006, the Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner parachuted onto the tower, and then jumped off it.