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From: "Architexturez." <interface.services@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 10:56:00 +0530
Lust for Height
By Philip Nobel
Friday, February 23, 2007
The Burj Dubai, slated to be the tallest building in the world when it’s
done in 2009, is rising 160 stories or more (the final height is a
secret) in the desert. It’s no anomaly. The terrorist attacks of 9/11
seem to have whetted the global appetite to build taller and taller.
Most of the new mega-skyscrapers are in Asia and the Middle East, but
the engineers and architects are American. Why the boom? A combination
of economic imperatives and powerful egos, both national and personal.
Coming soon: the fulfillment of Frank Lloyd Wright’s dream of a
mile-high building.
In October, at the premier international conference of skyscraper
builders, the first speaker announced without a hint of irony or doubt
that by 2030, somewhere, a mile-high skyscraper would be built. Five
thousand two hundred and eighty feet. One-tenth of the way to the ozone
layer. More than three times as tall as anything now standing and
exactly as high as the most fantastic towers ever dared conceived.
cont'd....
http://www.american.com/archive/2007/january-february-magazine-contents/0116-lust-for-height