Emporis was a real estatedata mining company with headquarters in Hamburg, Germany. The company collected data and photographs of buildings worldwide, which were published in an online database from 2000 to September 2022.[2]
On 12 September 2022, the managing director of CoStar Europe posted a letter on Emporis.com, informing its community members of the decision which had been made to retire the Emporis community platform, effective 13 September 2022.[3]
Emporis offered a variety of information on its public database, Emporis.com.[4] Emporis was frequently cited by various media sources as an authority on building data.[5][6]
Emporis originally focused exclusively on high-rise buildings and skyscrapers, which it defined as buildings "between 35 and 100 metres" tall and "at least 100 metres tall", respectively.[7] Emporis used the point where the building touches the ground to determine height.[8] The database had expanded to include low-rise buildings and other structures. It used a point system to rank skylines.[9]
Michael Wutzke started a website about skyscrapers in Frankfurt in 1996. In 2000 he started skyscrapers.com, which was folded into Emporis in 2003.[10]
In 2005 Emporis formed a partnership with the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), under which Emporis served as the official CTBUH high-rise buildings database until the launch of The Skyscraper Center in 2011.[11]
In 2007 venture capital firm Neuhaus Partners and KfW Bankengruppe invested several million euro in the company.[12] Effective 1 January 2009, the company moved its headquarters from Darmstadt to Frankfurt. In 2011, the company moved from Frankfurt to Hamburg.
On 26 October 2020, CoStar Group, Inc., based in Washington, D.C., completed its acquisition of Emporis GmbH.[1] CoStar Group added Emporis to its portfolio of brands.[13] The other brands included LoopNet, Apartments.com, Apartment Finder, Belbex, amongst several others.[13]
The merger of Emporis GmbH into CoStar Group subsidiary STR, Inc's German division, STR Germany GmbH, was finalized on 27 January 2021, with Emporis GmbH's removal from the Common Register Portal of the German Federal States (German: gemeinsame Registerportal der Länder) [14]
On 14 September 2022, the entirety of the Emporis website's original content, including the building database, articles and data regarding Emporis Skyscraper Award recipients, and corporate information, was removed.[3][15]
In 2023, former editors of the Emporis website created a new website called SKYDB, a website that acts with a similar purpose.[16]
In 2000, a group of Emporis senior editors began presenting the Emporis Skyscraper Award. Eligible buildings are selected from a list of all buildings in the world at least 100 meters tall which were completed that year.[6][17]
^ abWheeldon, David (8 January 2013). "Gold Coast's DBI Design wins worldwide skyscraper award for Etihad Towers". Architecture & Design. Retrieved 16 August 2013. Emporis, a global provider of building information, is regarded as an international authority on high-rise building design. Nominees and winners are chosen by Emporis editors – architecture experts from around the world... - "Great American Tower Recognized as a Top Skyscraper in the World". Western & Southern Financial Group. 7 December 2012. Archived from the original on 15 August 2013. Retrieved 16 August 2013. Every year since 2000, Emporis' expert international jury recognizes 10 skyscrapers completed in the previous calendar year. According to Emporis, a panel of architecture experts from all over the world judge nominated buildings based on aesthetic and functional design criteria and then rank them accordingly.
^Zeveloff, Julie; Grebey, James (30 August 2018). "The 25 best city skylines on the planet". Insider. The international building database Emporis attempts to quantify skylines by looking at the number and height of buildings in the world's major cities. The result is an ever-changing ranking of the world's most impressive cityscapes. To rank skylines, Emporis looks at completed skyscrapers (40 floors or more) and high-rises (12 to 39 floors), and assigns each building a point value based on its floor count. Taller buildings receive significantly higher values. TV towers, masts, bridges, and other structures are excluded.
