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KISS THE SKY
It seems so 20th century, but putting up
a taller tallest-building-on-earth still
obsesses developers and politicians and architects the world over.
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By Craig Offman
There are those among us who will compare skyscrapers to penises. Small (or big)
wonder, men have always been obsessed with size. Consider the Tower of Babel. Or Ozymandias/Ramses II, master
builder of the Egyptians. Or the rival merchant families of San Gimignano, the Manhattan of the Middle Ages, where 72
competing skyscrapers sprung up before the Florentines swooped in and put a stop to the frenzy. The priapic preoccupation
continues to this day, with builders in cities around the world in ongoing competition to erect the world's tallest building.
Consider the contenders: Dubai, Shanghai, New York City, and Taipei. These are potent, storied hubs, and they want
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Architect's rendering of 7 South Dearborn, Chicago, USA. If built, this skyscraper would have been the tallest in the world at 609 meters.
Image courtesy of Skidmore, Owings & Merril.
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to reflect those very
qualities in an architectural idiom. ”It's certainly a crude pursuit architecturally, but there's a crudeness about being one of these
cities,“ says Witold Rybczynski, a professor of urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania. ”They're rough-and-tumble kinds of people — business people.“
You can't really accuse the builders of greed. Experts say that buildings are a losing business proposition once they go beyond 50 floors, as so much precious office space is used up by elevator shafts and steel reinforcements. Yet despite the fiscal frivolity, these captains of industry remain staunch in their lofty ambitions.
At 509 meters, the current big boy on the block is Taipei 101, which cost US$1.8 billion to build; last year it eclipsed Kuala Lumpur's
Petronas Towers. Cathy Yang, assistant VP of the Taipei Financial Centre Corporation, which
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built 101, explains that the building is an
important testament to the country's underrated economic might: ”With all of our economic accomplishments, we feel neglected on
he world's stage.“ The building's design, she adds, ”resembles bamboo, an important symbol because it is strong but
flexible.“ But the US$8-billion Burj Dubai is the odds-on favorite to overtake it at an estimated 762-plus meters when it's f
inished, in 2008.
”They are truly seeking to be the world's tallest, but the plan is very secret,“ says Ron Klemencic, the chair of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, the group that referees this vertical derby. ”They won't tell us how tall it is, mainly so that they can retain top position as long as possible.“
Yet the Burj Dubai should also be feeling, well, a little locker-room anxiety. At an eighth of the cost,
Shanghai's World Financial Center, which will finish a year
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| Consider the contenders: Dubai, Shanghai, New York City, and Taipei. These are potent, storied hubs, and they want to reflect those very qualities in an architectural idiom.
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later, could end up at the same height. New York City's US$1.5 billion Freedom Tower will hit 541 meters (1776 feet) when it's completed, in 2009 — although that symbolic measurement depends on whether or not the council will consider the wind farm on top to be part of the building.
Klemencic's council isn't being so nitpicky just for the fun of it: if parts of a building are uninhabitable, the thinking goes, they shouldn't be included in the overall total. The best example of this distinction is Toronto's CN Tower. Only its lobby and a revolving restaurant are inhabitable, so why should it be considered a building? It's a souped-up antenna.
As rational as the adjudicating standards are, they can turn otherwise peaceful folk into raging lunatics.
”They hate us,“ says Klemencic of his Canadian critics, who resent the fact that their tower — technically the tallest
freestanding structure in the world — will never get official recognition.
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EMPIRE STATE BUILDING
381m
New York, United States. Shreve, Lamb&Harmon Assoc., 1931
SHUN HING SQUARE
384m
Shenzhen, China. K.Y. Cheung Design Associates, 1996
CITIC PLAZA
391m
Guangzhou, China. DLN Architects & Engineers, 1997
2 INTERNATIONAL FINANCE CENTRE
415m
Hong Kong, China. Cesar Pelli & Associates, 2003
JIN MAO TOWER
421m
Shanghai, China. Skidmore, Owings & Merrilll, 1999
SEARS TOWER
442m
Chicago, United States. Skidmore, Owings & Merrilll, 1974
PETRONAS TOWERS
452m
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Cesar Pelli & Associates, 1998
TAIPEI 101
509m
Taipei, Taiwan. C.Y. Lee & Partners, 2004
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