A pair of new tower blocks, each 209m tall, were simultaneously topped out last month at London’s Canary Wharf in the UK. The buildings will provide new corporate headquarters for the banks HSBC and Citigroup.
The Citigroup building was designed by architect Cesar Pelli (who also designed the adjacent 244m tower at One Canada Square, the UK’s tallest building and popularly known as the Canary Wharf tower) with Adamson Associates. The HSBC building was designed by Foster & Partners.
A Comedil CTL 400 luffing tower crane (maximum capacity 24t), owned by Select Tower Cranes, lifted the last piece of steel on to the top of the Citigroup building on 8 March. At the same time a Wolff 320 BF luffer (maximum capacity 28t) raised an identical steel section to the top of the HSBC building. The cranes were erected to a tower height of about 200m and both featured 50m jibs. The Wolff is owned by Hewden Tower Cranes. Both Hewden and Select have about 15 cranes around Canary Wharf and the neighbouring Heron Quay development.
Construction of the two new office blocks in Canada Square began in January 1999 and they are scheduled for completion early next year.
