Bow tower dazzles on world stage
Calgary project heads list of corporate buildings
Calgary’s Bow tower heads a list ranking the world’s most spectacular corporate buildings.
The globe’s most “dazzling” buildings were compiled by a jury of building experts from Emporis, a German-based database on building and construction projects.
“It’s a nice pat on the back. It was an incredible team effort,” said Jack Matthews, president of Matthews Development which was in charge of building the $1.4-billion Bow.
The 59-storey tower was announced in October 2006. It was initially owned by Encana but later sold to H&R Real Estate Investment Trust. Energy giants Encana and Cenovus — with more than 3,600 employees between them — are the building’s main tenants.
“It took a vision of a tenant that wanted to step out there and took a great architect that was willing to work with us and make sure everything worked properly and you’ve got a city that sort of held our hand at the beginning and pushed us a couple of times, but always properly,” said Matthews.
The design architect on the Bow was Foster + Partners.
“It really speaks to Calgary’s maturity and significance in the office and even the architectural world now — across the globe. We’re no longer considered that plain, vanilla box market that we once were,” said Susan Thompson, business development manager for real estate with Calgary Economic Development.
She said the Bow has also set a standard for future office tower development in the city. “I think there is some pressure on the rest of the office market now to live up to a higher standard,” said Thompson. “We’re starting to see more architectural features on a lot of buildings.”
“The taller, the bigger, the more eye-catching the better: More and more companies around the world are investing millions in spectacular corporate buildings in a desire to express their identity through architecture,” said Emporis.
The BMW Building in Munich, New York’s Hearst Tower, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur and General Motors’ Renaissance Center in Detroit were among other buildings on the Emporis list.