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skyscraper, Europe has traditionally been
resistant to growing upwards. The only
European building in the top 100 tallest
buildings in the world is The Shard in
London (306 meters) at number 56. But
with increasing pressure on land, com-
bined with financial and sustainability
factors, even traditionally anti-tall cities
like London and Paris are rethinking
their skylines.
Europe might never be home to the
biggest, but it is giving rise to some of
the most exciting tall buildings around.
dominated the race ever since. Today
the Burj Khalifa (828 meters) in Dubai
is the world’s tallest, while the first ever
one kilometer-tall building, the King-
dom Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, is
scheduled to be completed in 2018.
Not so long ago such heights would
have been unimaginable. But advances
in building technologies, expertise and
intelligence have enabled buildings to
keep getting taller. Wood believes there
are no longer any structural limits on
how tall buildings can go. “People say
to me ‘can we build a mile-high tower?’
The answer is yes, if we’ve got someone
to pay for it,” he says.
SkyScraper of the future
Tall buildings might represent a more
sustainable future, but concrete and
steel are among some of the most en-
ergy-intensive materials on the planet.
As well as innovations like solar panels,
green roofs and energy-efficient double
skin facades, architects are looking at
ways to dramatically re-imagine the
skyscraper to make it more environ-
mentally friendly. Proposals include
The Council on Tall Buildings
and Urban Habitat is based
at the Illinois Institute of
Technology in Chicago,
Illinois, United States.
“Some of the greatest advances in
skyscraper development in the last ten
years, certainly environmentally, have
happened in Europe,” says Wood.
a Symbol of proSperity
To see how the skyscraper has become
a global symbol of modernity and pros-
perity one need do no more than track
its expansion across the world.
The Home Insurance Building (55
meters) built in Chicago in 1885 was
the world’s first skyscraper. For more
than a century, the United States was
home to the world’s tallest buildings.
Then Malaysia’s Petronas Twin Towers
(452 meters) took the prestigious title
in 1998. Asia and the Middle East have
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