The twisting form of the Turning Torso is made up of 9 segments.
The skyscraper in Malmö, Sweden, is organized as nine stacked box units, each shaped around five-story pentagonal floor plans. As the units rise around a central vertical core, they rotate relative to one another, creating the building’s sculptural twist. The top segment is rotated 90 degrees clockwise compared with the ground floor.
Santiago Calatrava based the design on his white-marble sculpture Twisting Torso, which abstracts the movement of a human body. HSB Malmö managing director Johnny Örbäck encountered the sculpture in 1999 and subsequently invited Calatrava to develop a residential tower inspired by its turning geometry.
The number nine refers to the major architectural segments, not the total number of floors. The completed tower has 54 floors: the first two segments contain offices, while segments three through nine contain 147 rental apartments. A reinforced-concrete core carries elevators and stairs, and an exterior steel framework helps stiffen the rotating form. Turning Torso was completed in 2005 and reaches 190 metres.