Postscheckamt Essen

The Postscheckamt (today Postbank) building south of Essen main station was built between 1963 and 1968 based upon plans by Oberpostdirektion (regional post office management) as a reinforced concrete frame structure with a curtain facade made of glass and light metal.
The aesthetic limitation to a few functionalistic design elements is typical of high-rise buildings of that era influenced by the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill plans for the Lever-Building in 1951 and 1951. This internationally received plan is reflected in the Postscheckamt. The high-rise slab is combined with a wide low-rise building from which the structure rises into the sky, just as in New York.
The facade of dark parapet bands and a slightly extending fine vertical structure is also somehow related to the New York building.
The lavish window areas of the building and its rational arrangement inside, making for comparatively short distances, have been deemed exemplary modern and are not only in line with the company’s CI but also with the Federal Republic’s projected image at the time of the building’s construction in terms of after WWII now finally having caught up with international developments.

Author: Prof. Dr. Thorsten Scheer
Last changed on 07.04.2008

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Architecture » Commercial Buildings » Offices