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Skyscraper Museum
World's Tallest Building: BURJ DUBAI
By Joshua S. Hill
Friday, August 3, 2007
As the age of humanities occupancy of this planet has progressed, so has the desire to reach for the heavens. This inane human desire has exhibited itself most strongly in the architectural reaching for the skies. From the Biblical accounts of the Tower of Babel, through the Pyramids of Egypt, the gothic cathedrals of the medieval periods, all the way through to the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building, man has longed to reach higher and higher.
So we come to 2007, and the Skyscraper Museum's latest exhibit, the Burj Dubai. Coming to the end of its display, the supertall under construction in the desert sands of Dubai is expected to be completed in 2008, and will dwarf all other supertalls around the world. It will stand in at at least double the height of the Empire State Building, being at least higher than 700 meters, or 2,300 feet, which compared to the world's previously tallest building, the 1671-foot tall Taipei 101 in Taiwan, is absolutely massive.
The United Arab Emirates, home to this new dwarfing building, has over the past decade created an explosive growth of urban development. From airports, roads and port facilities, Dubai has become home to some of the most competitive real estate development ever. So it is not a surprise to see the world's tallest building arising up out of the center of such a development.
With anywhere between 3,000 to 6,800 men laboring daily on the site, or working through the night if the 100-120 degrees Fahrenheit becomes too much, the Burj Dubai project is under immense pressure to deliver. The end height of the tower is entirely a mystery, due to the competitive nature of building the world's tallest building. Only when it is completed will the final height be known, but an estimated 160 habitable floors is expected.
Ninety designers in the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP and a team of consulting companies are the architects behind this centerpiece to the US $20 billion complex labeled Downtown Burj Dubai.
The display that is accompanying the building process in Dubai is located at the Skyscraper Museum in New York. The display features architectural models, computer animations, drawings of the finished project, photographs and videos of the construction in progress, and many other features that have been drawing crowds.
But the display is not only about showcasing what is being put in to the tower, but what the tower is in historical context.
"We were excited to be able to present this exhibition while the Burj Dubai tower is still under construction and to draw attention to history in the making," explains Carol Willis, Director of The Skyscraper Museum and curator for the current exhibit. "While there's always a popular fascination with record-breaking height, Burj Dubai is also important because it characterizes a shift in the skyscraper paradigm in the 21st century."
That 'shift' is the move away from the supertalls being confined to the borders of America. Once it was only the Sears Tower and the Twin Towers of the World Trade in New York. However buildings that have been competing for various honors in the architectural world have been sprouting all over Asia, including the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, The Bahrain World Trade Center and the India Tower.
No longer is the height of an influential nation -- the skyscraper -- being limited to the last superpower standing, but to those countries with economies that are growing and providing for their citizens.
The tower constitutes a mix of uses including a boutique hotel, apartments from levels 20 through to 110, and boutique offices above that. And instead of the stereotypical steel construction used for many of the American towers, reinforced concrete is providing a very thin and slender form to this new architectural marvel.
William F. Baker, a partner at SOM and the chief structural engineer of Burj Dubai, has summarized the world-wide phenomenon of this new type of 21st-century supertall: "If skyscraper construction had stopped in 1990, one would say that the tallest skyscrapers are made of steel, built in the United States, and are office buildings. Today, one would say that the tallest skyscrapers are made of concrete or composite, are erected in Asia or the Middle East, and likely to be residential."
The exhibition at The Skyscraper Museum has been organized with the assistance of Emaar Properties PJSC, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, the Samsung Corporation, Turner International, RWDI, Inc., Otis Elevator Company, Lerch Bates Inc. -- Façade Access, and will be on view at the Battery Park City Gallery from April 25 through August 2007.
Joshua can be reached at: letters@canadafreepress.com
