CIS Tower
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The CIS Tower is the second-tallest building in Manchester, England. Measuring 387 feet (118 m) tall, the glass roofed building is home to The Co-operative Financial Services. The building was built in 1962. At the time it was the tallest building in Europe.
The building recently underwent a major facelift as it was clad in photovoltaic panels which will be able to power over 75 homes. The project is now complete and the tower has since lost its title as the tallest building in Manchester to the Beetham Tower which is 554 ft (169 m) tall.
The Tower originally was clad with millions of mosaic tiles, inspired by the buildings of Chicago such as the Seagram Tower. Sadly, pollution and numerous repairs had given it a more dull grey than shimmering silver colour. The directors decided to do something to help the problem of climate change. So CIS was set to go solar. The CIS Tower, was clad in PV panels at a cost of £5.5 million and started feeding electricity to the national grid in November 2005 [1].
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Solar Tower – CIS's Web page about the solar panel project
