Ještěd Tower is a 94 meter-tall television transmitter and hotel integrated into one, built on the top of Ještěd mountain near Liberec in the Czech Republic. The hyperboloid shape of the structure was chosen because it naturally extends the silhouette of the hill as well as resist the extreme climate conditions on the top of the hill. In the Tower's lowest sections it houses a hotel and a tower restaurant. It was built in the second half of the 1960s and designed by architect Karel Hubáček who received the Perret´s Prize of the International Union of Architects for it.
The tower and the mountain is located approximately 6 kms from the center of Liberec and serves as a dominant attraction in the city. The monument is accessible by road and also by cable car from the foot of the mountain.
The tower consist of two concentric tubes of varying height in diameters of 5m and 13m, on which individual floors are suspended on a steel structure, starting with the third story above ground. On the outer perimeter of the first floor a glazed gallery opens directly tied in to a spiral access ramp. An internal annulus of the first floor forms the entrance hall and reception to the hotel, which is dominated by a suspended staircase leading to an observation restaurant on the second floor. The next two floors, clad in aluminum, are used for accommodation. On the third floor are 14 hotel rooms for a total of 56 guests. On the fourth floor are rooms for employees of the transmitter and the hotel and two three-roomed flats. The area of the fifth to seventh floors is set aside for the aerials of the transmitting technology. There is a specially developed laminated cladding, against extreme weather conditions, in the shape of a revolving hyperboloid. On the seventh and eighth floors there is a tank for drinking water and battery-operated back-up power supply. The ninth floor contains the lift plant room. Above it a special pendulum is installed, whose movement absorbs the transverse oscillation of the tower.
Sources: UNESCO, Wikipedia via The World Geography
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