World's Tallest Structure

Petronas Twin Towers - World's Tallest Building in 1998 >Photo : Oxymanus

World's 20 tallest and biggest structures
By Paul Stasi
updated 11:01 a.m. ET Feb. 3, 2009 - from MSNBC.com

The Tower of Babel, whose top was meant to reach unto heaven, was destroyed by an angry God, who wished to punish human hubris and reserve the best views for himself.
As we humans have, inevitably, built our way back into the heavens, we have also continuously competed over the record for the world’s tallest building.
That record is currently held by the Taipei 101 Tower in Taiwan. Built in 2004, the Taipei 101 rises to 1,671 feet — easily beating out the Ancient Babylonian Ziggurat scholars name as a possible source for the biblical tower (which stood around 300 feet tall).
But Taiwan has little time to gloat. The Burj Dubai Tower is scheduled for completion in 2009, and its height — a closely guarded secret — is rumored to be over 2,200 feet.
Complicating matters is the definition of “tallest building” itself.
Until 1998, the Sears Tower in Chicago (1,730 feet) was considered the tallest building in the world. Then along came Malaysia’s Petronas Towers, whose antennae, in a direct slap at Midwestern supremacy, extended 30 feet higher than that of the Sears Tower. (The Petronas Towers building without the antennae is, in fact, smaller than the Sears).
Finally two organizations — Emporis, a real estate data company headquartered in Germany, and the imaginatively named Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat located in Illinois — stepped in to clarify matters.
The term "building" is now defined as a “continuously inhabited structure,” thus creating the new category of “tallest free-standing structure,” a title currently held by the CN Tower in Toronto.
Architectural height is now measured in four separate categories: Height to Architectural Tip (including spires but excluding antennae); Height to Top of Roof (excluding spires); Height to Tip (including everything) and Highest Occupied Floor (a measure of the tallest building with continuously occupied floors). Currently the Petronas Towers has been superseded in all four categories.
Problem would seem to be solved, though the dispute rages on in cyberspace, where the CN Tower, for instance, still proudly refers to itself as the “tallest building in the world.”
Of course Worrell’s Seafood Restaurant in Wilson, N.C., also claims to have the “World Tallest Replica of the World’s Tallest Lighthouse” in its parking lot, so clearly you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet.

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New York City remains No. 1, but China is catching up.

The soaring global economy of the last 20 years pushed the world's leading financial centers to enduring heights. Not their stock markets, which have collapsed, but their skylines.

All but two of the world's 20 tallest buildings (the 1,451-foot Sears Tower and the 1,250-foot Empire State Building) were built during this long bull market, according to Emporis, a global building-information company. Today the world's tallest cities reflect that growth.
New York City still stands tallest, with 35 towers over 700 feet, more than any other city. But China is catching up. Hong Kong is No. 2 with 30 such towers, and Shanghai is No. 4 with 21 towers.

These cities have risen fast. In 1999, Shanghai completed the 1,380-foot Jin Mao Tower. It was Shanghai's first building taller than 700 feet; since then the city has built 20 more.

No city in the world, however, has developed as explosively as Dubai. As oil wealth flooded the United Arab Emirates, the emirate of Dubai on the Persian Gulf poured money into construction, much as Houston had done decades earlier.

Today, Dubai is home to the world's tallest tower. The 2,684-foot Burj Dubai was topped off in January of this year. The building is scheduled to open in the fall of 2009. It will be the world's tallest building by 1,000 feet. The second-tallest building, Taipei 101 in Taiwan, is a comparatively modest 1,671 feet.

With the rise of China and Dubai, Chicago is now No. 5. Shenzhen, the Chinese city just north of Hong Kong, is closing in.

A report, released this week from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, estimates that by 2020, the world's skylines will again be redrawn. By 2020, Taipei 101, currently the second-tallest building in the world, will be No. 20.

Dubai is determined to stay on top. After completing the Burj Dubai, it is planning the 3,280-foot Nakheel Tower. Saudi Arabia hopes to build the 3,280-foot Kingdom Tower. Both towers are very tentatively scheduled for completion in 2020--if the oil keeps flowing out and the dollars keep pouring in.

The foundations are already being laid for other super towers around the globe. In Shanghai, the 2,073-foot Shanghai Tower will complete a trio of towers in the city's financial district, which currently includes the world's third-tallest building, the 1,614-foot Shanghai World Financial Center.

In the U.S. both Chicago and New York are racing to build new super towers. New York's Freedom Tower, also known as World Trade Center One, will reach 1,776 feet when completed. In Chicago, foundations are in place for the Chicago Spire, a planned 2,000-footer that would allow the Windy City to remain the home of America's tallest tower.

But whether these skyscrapers will ever touch the clouds depends how quickly the economy turns around. Across the world, projects are grinding to a stop, as financing collapses or demand for hundreds of floors of office space in financial districts disappears. The Chicago Spire, the Nakheel Tower and Moscow's planned 2,008-foot Moscow Tower have all been placed on hold in recent months.