Kahramanlar Business Center


Kahramanlar Business Center, originally known between 1959 and 2015 as Emek Business Center, is a 22 storey highrise building at Kızılay Square in Ankara, Turkey.
Inspired by the Lever House building in New York City, it was designed in 1959 as one of the first International Style highrise buildings in Turkey. At the time of its completion in 1965, it was the tallest building in Ankara.

Construction

The building was commissioned by the Emekli Sandığı bound to the Social Security Administration of Turkey, and was built between 1959 and 1965 as a revenue generating property. The architects were :tr:Enver Tokay|Enver Tokay and :tr:İlhan Tayman|İlhan Tayman, and the statics engineer was Yusuf Berdan.
It was one of the first International Style highrise buildings in Turkey, and the first with a glass curtain wall facade. Its design was primarily inspired by the Lever House building, blended with some of the facade characteristics of the United Nations Secretariat Building in New York City.
The ground floor and the first two floors were designed as a shopping center, while the other floors were reserved for offices. The building is situated to the southeast of Kızılay Square, opposite to the Kızılay building, which gives the square its name.
Construction works temporarily stopped due to the 1960 coup d'état, which delayed the completion and opening date to 1965.

Privatization

On March 8, 2006, the Privatization Board of Turkey sold the building for $55,500,000 to Talip Kahraman Construction Co. The building was renamed as Kahramanlar Business Center in November 2015.

List of 50 projects

Turkish Chamber of Civil Engineers lists Kızılay Emek Business Center as one of the fifty civil engineering feats in Turkey, a list of remarkable engineering projects realized in the first 50 years of the chamber.