Topping out ceremony at Stuttgart Trade Fair Centre
28.09.2006
On September 25, guests from politics, industry and the arts joined those involved in the construction project to celebrate the topping-out ceremony at Germany's biggest building site.
Guests at the ceremony in Hall 4 included the Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg Günther H. Oettinger, Minister for Trade & Industry Ernst Pfister, and the Lord Mayor of Stuttgart, Dr. Wolfgang Schuster.
Currently, fitout work is proceeding apace in the standard halls, the restaurants, the lecture theater, the small auditorium in the congress center, and entrance halls. At the same time, building services equipment is being commissioned. Fitout of the underground car park under the piazza will be completed by Christmas 2006 and the multistory car park over autobahn A8 will be completed by May 2007. Work on the grounds is also being undertaken at full speed. The main task for Drees & Sommer in this megaproject is to ensure meeting of cost, schedule and quality targets and to coordinate all involved in the project. During peak construction phases, this can mean controlling up to 1,700 employees and tight schedule management to ensure punctual completion of the Trade Fair Center by 2007. A total of some 100 schedules were drawn up, supplemented by a building-site logistics concepts to ensure that the 40 to 60 cranes on the site could operate smoothly. There is still much to do by October 2007 to turn Germany's biggest building site into Europe's most modern trade fair center with its key feature of market- and function-oriented design.
