2020-05-29

Construction work, as at 29 May 2020

Photos: Frank Marburger/Klaus Helbig

Another milestone in the construction of the Reinhard Ernst Museum has been reached: the floor slab was completed just a few days ago. It forms the base for the multi-storey building, which will grow to its full height by the summer of 2022. The second construction crane to do this job is now also in place.

Some interesting information about the already completed section:

The floor slab has five levels and has different thicknesses depending on the section – from 80 to 125 cm. Since early April, 345 concrete mixer vehicles have made their way to Wilhelmstrasse 1 to unload 2,515 cubic metres of concrete. It was spread over an area of 2,722 square metres. If you were to fill this amount of liquid concrete in milk bottles and line them up lengthwise in a row, they would stretch 650 kilometres – easily all the way to Lake Como.

Over 550 tonnes of iron were used so that the foundation can withstand heavy loads. The floor slab itself weighs around 6,300 tonnes. Its classification as concrete quality rating C3037 and its minimum compressive strength of > 30 N/mm² demonstrates that it is capable of carrying the calculated net weight of the shell construction to follow of approx. 26,000 tonnes. As such, you could place two and half times the total mass of the Eiffel Tower on the foundation – and it would bear the load without any problems. The successful completion of this construction phase provides a good basis and good reasons to look forward to what will be created in the next few months.