Google Sightseeing takes you on tour of the world as seen from satellite, using the free Google Earth program, or Google Maps in your web browser. Each weekday your guides James and Alex present new weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.

The editors: James & Alex

Kio Towers

Posted by James Turnbull, Saturday, 8th October 2005

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Here at Google Sightseeing we’ve previously featured photos of buildings which appear to be leaning towards each other due to the angle of the photo. However, Madrid’s Kio Towers actually do lean towards each other, here’s a ground level pic if you don’t believe me.

Each at 15 degrees from the vertical, they were the first inclined skyscrapers in the world and due to the gateway-like appearance are also known as the “Puerta de Europa”.

Thanks: steve, Jon, Coquevas & Kalimero

10 Responses to 'Kio Towers'

  1. Heck says:

    The name is “Puerta de Europa”. “Puerto” means “seaport”, whereas “puerta” means “door”.

    I was born in Spain, Spanish is one of my mother tongues, and I lived in Madrid for five years, in case you’re wondering why I’m correcting this. :)

  2. Luke says:

    That is really cool and it looks weird from above.

  3. Pedro says:

    Where’s Mardid? :P

  4. Barking Bob says:

    Duh..it’s in Sapin ;)

  5. James says:

    Ah well, my first post in three weeks and it’s all wrong :D

    Thanks Heck & Pedro for the corrections, both of which are fixed.

  6. Steve says:

    The towers look weird from the side too! I was in Madrid for the 3rd Oct eclipse and from the mountains to the north they dominate the skyline – all the other buildings you can see from there are vertical so these really stand out. By the way it should read “Here” and not “He” in the title

  7. izzy says:

    How about these two towers in Bologna, Italy:

    Placemark: link / Google Earth

    They actually do lean towards each other:

  8. izzy says:

    oops, it didn’t include the photo for some reason. Here it is:

    Photo

  9. LEKO says:

    The Montreal Olympic Stadium is an amazing Inclined Tower… :)

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclined_tower

  10. john says:

    these towers in madrid are an interesting sight to see and were built by the KIO (kuwait investment authority) and hence referred to as KIO towers by the locals.