Glass palace made of Tambest glass

The building was designed by Richard Meier, a leading New York architect, and contains 5,000 square metres of coated solar control glass, which aims to create as pleasant an interior ambiance as possible.Glass units are joined using a structural glazing, which results in a fa‡ade completely made of glass without any obtrusive frames.

In order to prevent the optical quality of the storey-high glass panels from being compromised by mechanical safety structures, laminated Low-E safety glass was chosen to be used on the fa‡ade of the six storeys of the store. This makes it possible for customers to evaluate the quality of products as close up to natural daylight as possible. In order to avoid colour changes caused by the fa‡ade glass, the material chosen for this purpose was a type known as 'extra clear glass', which is extremely neutral in colour.

Tambest's delivery included 234 units of bent glass with a total surface area of 650 m2. The manufacturing of the 5 m wide and 3 m high curved display windows in particular was a major challenge to Tambest. The transportation of glass units also required many special logistics arrangements. Firstly, the glass units were transported through Finland from the production plant in Tampere to Helsinki harbour and then by sea to Travemnde on the German coast. Finally, the units were delivered to Dsseldorf at night by special transport with a police escort.

Tambest and its glass products have received much praise in Dsseldorf both for their first-class quality and successful delivery as well as for the smooth cooperation. All glass units were manufactured precisely to meet the agreed dimensions. Not a single glass unit was damaged in the complex transit process and there were no problems with unloading, despite the fact that the units could only be unloaded between 4 and 6 a.m. due to the busy pedestrian area nearby. 'The glass units delivered by Tambest are the best quality I've ever seen, says Mr. F. Zeimentz, who is responsible for fitting the glass fa‡ade.

The curved glass used for the P&C building was manufactured in Tambest's new jumbo furnace, which makes it possible to bend glass units with dimensions up to 6 x 3.2 m. The flat glass used in the building was supplied by Scholl Glas from Berlin, Germany.