The Gate of Europe towers (, "Door of Europe"), also known as KIO Towers (''Torres KIO''), are twin office buildings near the

Plaza de Castilla The Plaza de Castilla (, ) is a square in the north of Madrid, Spain. Location It is located in the north of the city and is bisected by Paseo de la Castellana, one of the main thoroughfares of the capital, almost at its end. It lies between th ...

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, Spain. The towers have a height of and have 26 floors. They were constructed from 1989 to

1996 1996 was designated as: * International Year for the Eradication of Poverty Events January * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...

. The Puerta de Europa is the second tallest

twin towers Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of Twin Last Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two e ...

in Spain after the

Torres de Santa Cruz The Torres de Santa Cruz is a residential complex composed of the List of twin buildings and structures, twin towers located in the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain). They were designed by Canarian architect Julian Valladares ...

Santa Cruz de Tenerife Santa Cruz de Tenerife (; locally ), commonly abbreviated as Santa Cruz, is a city, the capital of the island of Tenerife, Province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and one of the capitals of the Canary Islands, along with Las Palmas. Santa Cruz has a ...

. The Gate of Europe towers were designed by the American architects

Philip Johnson Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an American architect who designed modern and postmodern architecture. Among his best-known designs are his modernist Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut; the postmodern 550 ...

and

John Burgee __NOTOC__ John Burgee (born August 28, 1933) is an American architect noted for his contributions to Postmodern architecture. He was a partner of Philip Johnson from 1967 to 1991, creating together the partnership firm Johnson/Burgee Architects ...

, built by

Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas The FCC Group, formerly Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas, S. A. (currently one of the group's entities), is a Spanish business group, based in Barcelona. It has specialised in public services. Its shares were first listed on the stock exchan ...

and commissioned by the

Kuwait Investment Office The Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) is the State owned sovereign wealth fund of the State of Kuwait, managing the state's reserve and the state's future generation fund, also known as "Ajyal Fund". Founded in 1953, the KIA is the world's olde ...

(hence their initial name "''Torres KIO''" or "KIO Towers"). Leslie E. Robertson Associates, RLLP New York (LERA) provided structural engineering services. Each building is 115 m tall with an inclination of 15°, making them the first inclined skyscrapers in the world. They are located near the Chamartín

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

, on the sides of the

bus station, north from the

Paseo de la Castellana Paseo de la Castellana, commonly known as La Castellana, is a major thoroughfare in Madrid, Spain. Cutting across the city from south to north, it has been described as the "true structuring axis" of the city. History and description The street ...

and near the

Cuatro Torres Business Area The Cuatro Torres Business Area (CTBA), also known as the ''Área de Negocios de las Cuatro Torres'' ( Spanish for "Four Towers Business Area"), is a business district located in the Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid, Spain, on the former Ciudad D ...

(CTBA). After the receivership of Grupo Torras, KIO had to sell the buildings, which are now owned by

CaixaBank CaixaBank, S.A. (), formerly Criteria CaixaCorp, is a Spanish multinational financial services company. CaixaBank is based in Valencia, with operative offices in Barcelona and Madrid. It is Spain's third-largest lender by market value, after Ban ...

and

Realia Realia may refer to: * Realia (education), objects from real life used in classroom instruction * Realia (library science), three-dimensional objects from real life that do not easily fit into the traditional categories of library material * '' ...

. The west tower has a rooftop

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

pad outlined in blue; the east tower has a red one.

In popular culture

The towers played a key role in the 1995 movie ''

The Day of the Beast ''The Day of the Beast'' () is a 1995 black comedy film co-written and directed by Álex de la Iglesia and starring Álex Angulo, Armando De Razza and Santiago Segura. It is a Spanish-Italian co-production. The plot concerns the unorthodox attemp ...

'', the climax of which took place on one of the then nearly-completed towers. The towers were also shot in the song sequence "oru koodai sunlight" in the popular

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

film ''

Sivaji Sontineni Sivaji (born 30 June 1971), is an Indian actor and voice actor who works in Telugu cinema. He had won the Nandi Award for Best Male Dubbing Artist for '' Dil''. His notable performances include ''Missamma'' (2003), '' Adirindayya Chan ...

''. They are also seen in an episode of ''

Mickey and the Roadster Racers ''Mickey Mouse Mixed-Up Adventures'' is an American animated children's television series that was broadcast on Disney Junior. Produced by Disney Television Animation, the series is the successor to ''Mickey Mouse Clubhouse''. Originally airing ...

''. The racers must collect a flag from the top of the towers in 'Running of the Roadsters' (episode 5b). They also appear in the racing game ''

Mario Kart Tour is a 2019 kart racing mobile game developed and published by Nintendo for Android and iOS. It is the ninth game in the Mario Kart series. The game features biweekly, downloadable themed tours with different cups, each of which has three course ...

'' in the background of the course 'Madrid Drive'.

References

External links

Computer generated image of the Golden Top Crown of the Fuente de Europa''dudas''
{{Authority control Towers completed in 1996 Skyscraper office buildings in Madrid Philip Johnson buildings Inclined buildings John Burgee buildings Postmodern architecture Twin towers Buildings and structures in Tetuán District, Madrid Buildings and structures in Chamartín District, Madrid

In popular culture

See also

References

External links