The gorgeous new One World Trade centre (formerly known as the Freedom Tower) is still under construction but it’s looking more and more gorgeous everyday. What’s more gorgeous: the view of New York City when you’re on top of the new giant skyscraper. Wow. More »
Pittsburgh, PA’s 33-story Grant Building famously spells out the name of the city in Morse Code so brightly it can be seen for over 100 miles. Except it doesn’t actually spell Pittsburgh, but “Pitetsbkrrh.” Eep. More »
Design goodness hunters Dezeen got this pictures of the 358 metre high Sinosteel International Plaza in Tianjin, China, designed by architects MAD–or just mad architects. The external white honeycomb structure, with huge hexagonal windows that vary slightly in size, is not just for the pretty looks: it will sustain the whole building without the need for any internal structure. And make it look like a huge wasp nest to me. From the inside, however, each room looks like a space station.
A giant joint? The horn on a unicorn? How about the taller Dubai Tower with its twists? One thing is for certain, the Chicago Spire will be the world’s second tallest building when it is completed in 2011. The Spire was designed by architect Santiago Calatrava, and it will rise 2000 feet over the streets of Chicago and feature 150 floors housing 1,194 residences. And, because of its unique spiraled design, each floor rotates an average of 2.44 degrees (360 degrees in total) so that no two apartments have the same view. And the building has a LEED gold rating for supreme greenness.
As of today, the Burj Dubai skyscraper in the Middle East stands at 650 metres, and here’s a diagram found on the SkyscraperCity forums, comparing it to all the other towers. The construction has finally surpassed the current tallest man-made structure, the Warsawa radio mast in Poland, which stands at 646 meters. Only another 169 meters to go before the tip of the aircraft beacon is up, then. Clicky for bigger. [SkyscraperCity—thanks, Brian]
Sure, the Burj Dubai tower looks amazingly tall, but it’s final height— currently projected to be 700 metres— is less than half that of a new building planned for Saudi Arabia. It’s going to be 1,600 metres high. Yup, that’s 1.6 kilometres tall: taller than anything under construction anywhere, and making it easily the world’s tallest building. Think they should stick a TV antenna on the top and go for that little bit extra? I sure do.
For the record, I would like to state that I’m really bored of these outsized erections popping up all over the Arabian Peninsula. This one is going up in the Dubai Marina. It’s called the Infinity Tower (because that is how long it seems that we have been covering these giant penile substitutes that are currently littering the Middle East) and its USP is that it twists 90º. This is the blurb on the 1,000-foot, 80-story, twisted monstrosity.
Jean Nouvel unveiled his design for The Tower at 53rd West 53rd Street this weekend. As well as the now-obligatory apartments and seven-star swank-hotel, the 75-story glass-and-steel structure will have three floors dedicated to housing the overflow collection of the neighbouring MoMA. Check the gallery below to see what the skyscraper, whose construction is expected to begin some time next year, is expected to look like.
newVideoPlayer("talldubai_gawker.flv", 475, 288);
On our blink-and-you’ll-miss-it visit to the world’s largest building site, aka Dubai, we stopped for a gawk at this, the Burj Dubai. Currently the tallest structure in the world, it stands at 156 stories and 585 meters high, but is expected to reach around 800 meters when finished. Designed by Adrian Smith, the tower continues the Armani-Samsung love-in, as the Italian designer is putting his name to a sexy hotel, while the Korean mega-corp is one of the three constructors on the skyscraper. But the cruelest cut of all is that Burj Dubai (burj means “tower” in Arabic) will be dwarfed by Kuwait’s Burj Mubarak Al-Kabir, which will measure 1,001 meters when it is ready. But that’s not expected to be until 2012 so, until then, size queens will be eyeing up Dubai. [Burj Dubai] More »
