February 2010
2010: a good year according to the numbers
The year 2010 has barely begun and already it's an exciting year for both CTBUH and tall buildings. The opening of the Burj Khalifa and the coinciding opening of our new interactive database of tallest buildings on the CTBUH Web site has triggered a lot of worldwide media attention for the Council. The completion of Burj Khalifa at 828 metres (Note: height still to be ratified by our height committee!), is the first of an unprecedented number of supertalls that will be completed this year.
These include the International Commerce Centre (483 meters), Nanjing Greenland Financial Center (450 meters), and Guangzhou International Finance Center (440 meters), all in China, to name the top three, along with more than sixty buildings over 200 meters, predominantly in the Middle East and Asia, which will join the Burj Khalifa on the list of completed buildings in the months to come.
In a recent interview the renowned architecture critic Paul Goldberger describes this drive for great height as “more or less an obsession for newer cultures, a trend which we have largely given up in the West, partly because we can’t afford it.” In the same interview he goes on to explain that the newer cultures are eager to prove themselves just as the US once was when skyscrapers were invented. Looking at the shift of development of tall building over the past decades, it may very well be true that the new economies are emerging as an international force in the 21st Century and that to them it is tremendously important to have the tallest, the largest, the biggest everything. By doing so, the skyscrapers in the context of emerging economies have created a great buzz for the cities in which they were built, and enabling these cities to present themselves as new destinations to do business, go for shopping or just to spend the holidays.
Looking at the numbers it is easy to conclude that the skyscraper is no longer an exclusive embodiment of the American cityscape. However, and to the surprise of many, our often quoted annual overview of top 10 tallest buildings completed in the previous year showed that neither Dubai nor Shanghai, but Chicago, led the world in completed skyscrapers of at least 198 meters / 650 feet tall in 2009. Although this might be incidental, this fact tells you that the skyscraper in a western context has a role to play when it comes to creating attractive urban densities. These may reasonably result in a more sustainable way of life which is based on the availability of markets, goods, ideas and networks, and decreases the dependency on cars. Downtown Chicago has seen an impressive residential development in recent times, which has made the city center a far more attractive place than it was only fifteen years ago. Skyscrapers have helped to create places where one wants to be, instead of an area to pass through or to move away from. This is something many western cities can take note of.
Another often brought up story in recent media items is the Skyscraper Index, a theory suggesting that the world's tallest buildings have risen on the eve of economic downturns. Previous years have shown a number of tall building projects that may or may not be realized. But what these projects above all show is that the tall building has already developed into a new typology, accompanied by a new designs and concepts, that undoubtedly will influence future developments. Aqua’s waving balconies, the Met’s integrated green spaces, the Linked Hybrid’s concept of a skybridge-linked community concept, Burj Khalifa’s soaring height and Pearl River Tower’s zero net energy ambitions show that making better skyscrapers has never looked so good, and it shows that a dilemma can be turned into an opportunity given proper ambitions.
In the sustainable context, more than ever, skyscrapers will not only be judged by their power to impress people, but also on their capability to make better urban environments. Instead of the end of an era, I think we’re looking at the beginning of a new one, in which ecological issues will continue to play a pivotal role in the development and design of new tall buildings.
It is this background of a changing global context which makes our upcoming Mumbai conference a very timely one. Given the country’s population, India surprisingly has no history of looking at tall buildings as a means to cope with the challenges that come with a high population. On the one hand, India is now looking at tall buildings in the same way that European countries were while studying high-rises in the early 20th century, as a way to create space and make a light and fresh living environment available to many. On the other hand India has many hundreds of years of experiences and a variety of urban and cultural contexts to look at. It will be very interesting to see how they will mold the skyscraper into an Indian answer for the challenges they are facing.
I, for one, think the future of tall buildings looks bright, and I am very excited to be part of it.
Sincerely,
Jan Klerks