World’s Tallest Buildings
June 20, 2005
I am a bit obsessive about some things. One of those things is tall buildings. I was interested to go see whatever building was going to be built in the empty footprint of the World Trade Center (1360 ft).
In December of 2002 CNN reported on proposed designs. Honestly, I think all of these are lame including the one they chose by Studio Libeskind, now dubbed “The Freedom Tower.” This building is planned to be 1776 feet tall, intentionally aligned with the year of our nation’s birth. There are aspects of this building that are nice, including the observation deck at 1500 ft and that it will likely be the tallest building in the world when it completes, but this is then paled by the fact that the highest floor is only 1100 feet. This is far lower than many existing buildings and is also where discussion of tall buildings gets difficult…
CTBUH is an international non-profit organization spending their time talking about really big buildings. The official criteria for the world’s tallest building definition states: “The height of a building is measured from the sidewalk level of the main entrance to the architectural top of the building, including penthouse and tower. Towers include spires and pinnacles. Television and radio antennas, masts, and flag poles are not included.â€? Although they added three more classifications including: Highest Occupied Floor, Top of Roof, and Top of Pinnacle or Antenna. I really feel as though “highest occupied floor” is the most significant. The rest seem a bit more arbitrary.
So that all sounds straight forward right? Four records each assigned to whoever meets the definition. Nope, not that simple, how do we define a building? CTBUH defines them as a freestanding, habitable structure. This excludes the following amazing structures:
- KVLY-TV tower, 2063 ft - undeniably the tallest man made structure currently in existence
- The Petronius Platform - an off-shore oil rig which is 2001 ft if you include underwater structures
- The CN Tower, 1815 ft - located in Toronto, Canada, the CN Tower is excluded merely because it is an observation tower and not a building
Anyway, I’ll ignore those as well, and talk a bit about the ones that are actually considered tallest buildings on some official grounds. Taipei 101 (1667 ft to highest relevant point) in Taiwan takes three out of four of the distinctions leaving only “Top of Pinnacle or Antenna” to go to the Sears Tower (1736 ft to relevant point) in Chicago.
These two buildings are dang cool. Both have much more interesting designs than the Freedom Tower, I especially like Taipei 101. Or, how about a similar size building currently under construction, the Shanghai World Financial Center ( ft) has been under construction since 1997 and has encountered many delays , but take a look at the design, this is a very appealing structure.
I think the WTC should be replaced with a monstrous building that exceeds all the records with no room for debate. We should push up past 2000 ft and approach 3000 ft. There is some fear about a repeat of 9/11, but I think that is crazy. Instead we make a stand and say to the terrorists, “You can knock ‘em down, but we’ll build bigger and stronger.” If we fear them in this way we let them win.
There was one serious contender as an alternate, which was proposed by Donald Trump. Twin Towers 2 (1858 ft) would be a visually identical recreation of the original Twin Towers. They would be moved slightly, and built a bit higher, but basically be the same. I like the added height and space idea, but I think a visual recreation would look and feel like a replica, never capturing the same sense of wonder, nor establishing any new status of their own.
In response to this and other complaints there is plans underfoot to do another redesign which will be unveiled later this month. Hopefully it takes the best of both and combines it into something far more interesting and useful.
Do you wonder if maybe 2000-3000 ft is unreasonable, maybe a bit too high? There are plans already to push these numbers elsewhere. Burj Dubai (est 2314 ft) will stand out in the desert city of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The actual height of this completed building is being guarded like a national secret and is rumored to reach a height f over 3000 ft. Even the more conservative estimate will make Burj Dubai stand alone.
A less likely building is Tokyo’s Sky City (est 3300 ft). Discovery recently featured a show about Sky City. This is entirely in the heads of Tokyo engineers, but what they present is an intriguing look into the future that might be. One of the more interesting aspects about this is the plan to build it so levels became habitable from the ground up. Making it possible for people to begin moving in very quickly as the building continued to grow. Takenaka has had plans for Sky City since 1989 and his vision has seemed to grow in possibility over the years. Some other details can be found here.
Other interesting Tall Structure related whatnot:
- Solar Tower Buronga (3281 ft)
- Wikipedia: World’s Tallest Buildings
- The Petronas Towers (1483 ft) Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - tied with itself for second tallest building in the world. The sky bridge connecting the two halfway up is the most interesting architectural feature as far as I’m concerned.
- Jin Mao Building, China (1380 ft) 5th Tallest Building in the World
Tags: architecture, big buildings, buildings, burj dubai, chicago, cn tower, cnn, daniel libeskind, flag poles, freedom tower, kuala lumpur, kvly tv tower, mast, masts, new york, observation deck, penthouse, petronas towers, petronius platform, radio antennas, sears tower, shanghai, shanghai world financial center, taipei 101, tall buildings, tallest building in the world, tallest buildings, tower, towers
Comments
15 Responses to “World’s Tallest Buildings”
Got something to say?
ammazing
[...] Lately I have been getting a lot of incoming search terms related to my World’s Tallest Buildings Story. I have decided it must be my duty to research who holds this title. As with most things, there is slightly more complexity than a simple person’s name. [...]
[...] Zach likes tall buildings. Perhaps it relates to his superhero obsession (leap giant buildings in a single bound and all), but it’s undeniable that he likes them. [...]
it is Sears Tower
I think the world’s BEST large buildings were the Twin towers of the WTC. I miss those towers :(.
I’ve heard that in Tokyo there is a mega-project called ‘Aeropolis’. It would be the highest building in the world according to some architects, and it would have more than a mile of height. Is that true?
Dear Webmaster,
I have some good websites, whose resource pages are with good page rank by
Google.
I am looking to exchanging links and we have many categories so your site will
be place on an appropriate page.
If you are interested in swaping links please send me your website details.
I am sorry if I wasting your time and have a nice day!
Best Regards,
Edythe Senta
Thank you for writing this article. It provides good information to support a relevant debate as a Civil Engineer.
The world’s tallest skyscraper should be a structure above ground (not in water), capable of being habitable, measured to the highest point a person can reach without climbing, cables or ropes. Antennas, spires, poles, are all nonsense when it comes to considering height.
I look foward to your next article on this subject.
-marQues
The sears tower in Chicago should be called the worlds tallest considering it has more floors from the ground up (108 floors,but if you count the mechanicaltwo tier penthouse it is 110)this is more floors than any other building in the world,if we want to go to antenae it is still the tallest.If we go by roof top the Taipeai 101 has that small addition at the top which is considered their roof.
i am doing a report on this and i need to know who wrote this artical, and if you are making this up (aka is it bogus?) or are you an arcetect no offence
i have to do an essay on the suject, don’t like it
Some people spend years paying off there credit card debts. That happens because they do not put enough effort in managing their finances and also because they do not read terms and conditions carefully. The information is always there you just need to read it. Just go to any professional credit card site such as
citi student card
People get credit cards for a reason. Yes, credit cards might entice you to buy more but most of the time you would have bought those things anyway. Credit card allow you to spend less but to save more if you make the right choice. An important thing is to compare credit card deals. Fortunately, it’s not that hard when you use the sites such as
0%apr consolidation
I think the best building is the taipei 101.
I am also a bit obsessive about certain things including the giant American flags. I am specifically interested in tall buildings with giant American flags at the top. If anyone knows of a website please let me know. I did find a growing listing at http://www.FlagsExpress.com. This company is known for making giant American flags.