IG Farben Building

The I.G. Farben Building – also known as the Poelzig Building and the Abrams Building, formerly informally called The Pentagon of Europe – is a building complex in Frankfurt, Germany, which currently serves as the main structure of the Westend Campus of the University of Frankfurt. Construction began in 1928 and was complete in 1930 as the corporate headquarters of the I.G. Farben conglomerate, then the world's largest chemical company and the world's fourth-largest company overall. The building's original design in the modernist New Objectivity style was the subject of a competition which was eventually won by the architect Hans Poelzig. On its completion, the complex was the largest office building in Europe and remained so until the 1950s. The I.G. Farben Building's six square wings retain a modern, spare elegance, despite its mammoth size. It is also notable for its paternoster elevators. The building was the headquarters for production administration of dyes, pharmaceutical drugs, magnesium, lubricating oil, explosives, and methanol, and for research projects relating to the development of synthetic oil and rubber during World War II. Notably I.G. Farben scientists discovered the first antibiotic, fundamentally reformed medical research and "opened a new era in medicine." After World War II, the IG Farben Building served as the headquarters for the Supreme Allied Command a

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