Posted on 03/30/2005 9:32:13 PM PST by M. Espinola
For now, the world's tallest building-to-be is just a flower-shaped concrete tattoo on the desert sands, but its pilings are already in place, plunging 160 feet into the earth. When it's finished, visitors will swoon over this city from 123 stories high, if not more.
In fact the Burj Dubai will be much higher, the developers say - dozens of stories taller than skyscrapers in Taiwan, Chicago or anywhere else. But they are keeping the exact height a secret to flummox competitors in the world's furious race for the title of tallest skyscraper.
"We're going to records never approached before. Not only will it be the tallest building, it will be the tallest manmade tower," said Robert Booth, a director at Emaar Properties, the Dubai construction firm developing the spire-shaped, stainless-steel-skinned tower.
Booth said jokingly that once completed in 2008, the $900 million Burj will sport a movable spire to keep observers from ever gauging the true height.
"Only the chairman will know how tall it is," he joked.
He refused to reveal the total number of stories, but a mock elevator at the site held a button for a 189th floor. The building's 10 foot sway in the wind means designers need to prevent whiplash in the ultra-long cables hauling up 50 elevators.
The craze for height has hit hardest in industrializing Asian countries like Taiwan, Hong Kong and China, which boast seven of the world's 10 tallest buildings. The current tallest, at 101 floors, is the Taipei 101 in Taiwan, though Toronto's CN Tower is 180 feet higher, largely because of its huge antenna.
The Persian Gulf city of Dubai has staked its fame on engineering audacity such as its vast archipelagoes of artificial holiday islands, and the Burj, Arabic for "tower," is one of its more extreme mega-projects.
New York built skyscrapers because land was scarce; Dubai is doing it to get on the international map.
"It's image, clearly," said Richard Rosan, president of the Washington-based Urban Land Institute. "There is no practical reason for having a building this tall."
On paper, the Burj looks something like a giant space shuttle about to be launched into the clouds.
Booth took reporters to the open-air 37th floor of a neighboring building, a vertigo-inducing experience in itself, and chatted breezily while standing perilously close to the abyss.
"Can you imagine what it's going to be like on the 137th floor?" he said. "You can't be scared of heights to do this job."
Developers say the silvery steel-and-glass building will restore to the Middle East the honor of hosting the earth's tallest structure - a title lost in 1889 when the Eiffel Tower upset the 43-century reign of Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza.
Designers have planned for catastrophes, manmade and other, said Greg Sang, Emaar's project manager for the Burj. Sang believes the concrete-core building would withstand an airliner strike of the sort that brought down the steel-frame World Trade Center.
"Concrete is much more robust than steel when you hit it. It's also much better at resisting fire," he said.
The tower owes its shape to American architect Adrian Smith, of the Chicago firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Smith also designed Shanghai's 1,378-foot Jin Mao tower, the world's fourth tallest.
Workers from the chief contractor, South Korea's Samsung, are already swarming over the slab, shaped in three rounded lobes like a local desert flower.
A hotel will occupy the lower 37 floors. Floors 45 through 108 will have 700 private apartments - already sold in just eight hours, the developer said.
Corporate offices and suites will fill most of the rest, except for a 123rd floor lobby and 124th floor observation deck - with an outdoor terrace for the brave. The spire will also hold communication equipment.
As for the title of world's tallest, Sang expects the Burj to hold it for a few years. "But someone, somewhere will come along and build a taller building. It's just a matter of time and money."
Well at least they won't have to fly to the US to hit a tall building.
ping
Judging from the overhead views of the Marina/Hotel he built recently, along with this tower, Sheik Makhtoum certainly has some "issues" about "measuring up."
al Qaeda bait
"That looks like a giant flying..."
Kind of off topic, but we shouldn't rebuild anything on the spot of the WTC. If anything we should just have a laser or a hologram ghost like image of the buildings to show remembrance.
I found this additional information: Architect Adrian Smith of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in Chicago has designed the world's largest tower. The skyscraper is called Burj Dubai and will be built in the United Arab Emirates. At over 2,000 feet tall, Burj Dubai will be almost twice the height of the John Hancock Center.
Skidmore's in Chicago also designed the Sears Tower, which up until 1996 was the tallest building in the world at 1,483 feet tall, and a lot of the planned Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center, which will be 1,776 feet tall when complete.
All reporters are taught to include the "where?" in their stories. It amazes me that, nowhere in the article does it tell the reader what country Dubai is located in. Oh, of course, all who read Forbes already know that it's in UAE, silly me.
Oh, goodie....
Yeah, if we turn it into a "somber monument" it means THE TERRORISTS HAVE WON! BUILD SOMETHING BIGGER THAN THE WTC, A BIG MIDDLE FINGER TO THE TERRORISTS!
We should remember it like we remember the Alamo. This Freedom Tower looks so tacky and lamely cliche.
I think it has more to do with the fact that Dubai is a pretty small place and real estate is worth a lot. With modern telecommunications and decentralization, why do we need mega-skyscrapers in America?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.