Height of World's Tallest Building has been revealed

The view from the 124th floor of the Burj Dubai is more like looking out of a plane than a building. That indicate how tall it is. It exceeds by more than 300 metres to its nearest rival, Taiwan's Taipei 101, which rises 509m (1,671ft).

The opening of the world's tallest building has taken place in Dubai as the official height was revealed - 828 metres (2717ft). It is about twice the height of the Empire State Building.

At a ceremony, the Burj Dubai, which means Dubai Tower in Arabic and 162 storeys high, was renamed Burj Khalifa by Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum.

The new name is after Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan - the president of the UAE and the ruler of the neighbouring emirate of Abu Dhabi.

The Burj Dubai symbolises catastrophic excess – of money, confidence, ambition, energy consumption.

The top of the building can be seen from 60 miles away and the exterior is covered in about 26,000 glass panels.

The building boasts the most storeys and highest occupied floor of any building in the world, and ranks as the world's tallest structure, beating a television mast in North Dakota.

Chiefly designed by Adrian Smith, who left SOM in 2006 to start his own firm, and SOM's chief structural engineer Bill Baker, it is beautifully sleek and elegant, rising in a graceful series of silver tubes of different heights.

It looks less like a single tower than a cluster of towers, an organic formation rather than a self-consciously iconic object. This is surely the best-looking tall building since New York's Chrysler and the Empire State in the 1930s.

"We weren't sure how high we could go," said Bill Baker, the building's structural engineer, who is in Dubai for the inauguration. "It was kind of an exploration ... a learning experience"

The Burj's opening comes at a tough time for Dubai's economy with property prices in newer parts of the sheikhdom down by nearly half over the past year.

The city-state turned to its richer neighbour Abu Dhabi for a series of bailouts in 2009 to help cover debts amassed by a network of state-linked companies.

Source

1 - Orange News
2 - Guardian




World's tallest building list

1. Two International Finance Centre (2003)

Two International Finance Centre stands high above the city of Hong Kong at an astonishing height of 1,362 feet (415 m), 88 stories above the ground.

2. Jin Mao Tower (1998)

The Jin Mao high-rise building in Shanghai soars at 1,380 feet (421m), 88 storeys high above the street level, making it the largest and highest observation deck in China.

3. Petronas Towers (1998)

The Petronas Towers stands at 1,483 feet (452m), 88 stories high. The construction of the two towers was completed in 1998

4. Sears Tower (1974)

The Sears Tower in Chicago stands at 1,450 feet (442m) and  527.3m with antenna, 108 stories high. Built in 1974, the Sears Tower surpassed the World Trade Center in New York, making it the tallest building in the United States.

5. Taipei 101 (2004)

The Taipei 101 Building, built in 2004. It stands at 1,671 feet (509 m), and is 101 stories high.

6. Chicago Spire (2010-11)

609.6m (roof) - 150 floors - Set to become North America’s tallest freestanding structure and the world’s tallest all-residential building, each floor will project seven arms from the central axis.

As the tower rises, each floor also rotates approximately two degrees, resulting in a shell-like spiral.

7. Burj Dubai (2009)

818m (spire, prediction) 636m (roof, as of May 2008) - 162 floors - With a spire that will be visible 60 miles away, 17-football-fields-worth of exterior surfacing will cover the approx. 162 floors of what is already the world’s tallest structure. Burj is part of a development that will include 30,000 homes, nine hotels and at least 19 residential towers.

Categories: Record