The Madou Plaza Tower (french: Tour Madou Plaza, nl, Madoutoren) is a high-rise building in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...

. It was built in 1965, renovated between 2002 and 2006, and taken over by the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...

. It is located on the

Small Ring The Small Ring (french: Petite Ceinture, nl, Kleine Ring) inner ring road, formally R20 and N0 is a series of roadways in central Brussels, Belgium, surrounding the historic city centre. The city centre is usually defined as the area within ...

(Brussels' inner ring road), in the municipality of

Saint-Josse-ten-Noode Saint-Josse-ten-Noode () or Sint-Joost-ten-Node (), often simply called Saint-Josse or Sint-Joost, is one of the 19 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium. Located in the north-eastern part of the region, it is bordered by the Ci ...

, at 1 /. It hosts the Commission's Directorate-General for Competition.

Architecture

The 33-story core of the Madou Tower was built in just over a month and has been compared as a smaller version of the

MetLife Building The MetLife Building (also 200 Park Avenue and formerly the Pan Am Building) is a skyscraper at Park Avenue and 45th Street, north of Grand Central Terminal, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed in the Internation ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. There is a high voltage transformer in the basement for power, along with a 1360 kW emergency generator added during renovation. Two

lift Lift or LIFT may refer to: Physical devices * Elevator, or lift, a device used for raising and lowering people or goods ** Paternoster lift, a type of lift using a continuous chain of cars which do not stop ** Patient lift, or Hoyer lift, mobil ...

s connect to the

parking garage A multistorey car park ( British and Singapore English) or parking garage (American English), also called a multistory, parking building, parking structure, parkade (mainly Canadian), parking ramp, parking deck or indoor parking, is a bui ...

. During the 2002–2006 renovation, the building's height was increased from to and office space was increased by to , requiring the building to be reshaped and strengthened. The renovation won the

MIPIM MIPIM (in French, Le Marché International des Professionnels de L’immobilier) is an international property event hosted in Cannes, France, each March. It is hosted by Reed MIDEM and includes an exhibition area, networking events and conference ...

Award 2006 in the 'Refurbished Office Buildings' category.

Commission

The

bought the building on 13 March 2006 inaugurating it on 19 April when its 1500 employees moved in. Based in Madou, as of 2007, were the Directorates-General for Communication,

Informatics Informatics is the study of computational systems, especially those for data storage and retrieval. According to ACM ''Europe and'' '' Informatics Europe'', informatics is synonymous with computer science and computing as a profession, in which t ...

, and Education and Culture and the Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation. Staff were previously based on the Axa-building on square Schuman, which was to be demolished. Since late 2012 it has hosted the Directorate-General for Competition.

References

External links

Madou Plaza
Emporis
News: European Commission moves to Madou Plaza
Emporis (2005-12-21)
Tour Madou Plaza
Nicolas Janberg's: Structure
Madou Plaza
Glass Steel and Stone
Official opening of Madou Plaza Tower, new EC building

(2006-04-20)
Gallery: The Madou Tower
Office of the Obscure Passages – before and after images

Goliath (2006-04-20) {{Eu-directorates-general Buildings and structures in Brussels Skyscraper office buildings in Belgium Buildings and structures of the European Union European quarter of Brussels Saint-Josse-ten-Noode Office buildings completed in 1965

Architecture

Commission

See also

References

External links