WORLD
World`s tallest buildings are often big fakes
Baku, September 10 (AZERTAC). THE builders of some of the world`s most famous modern skyscrapers are telling tall stories about their true heights.
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat has released a report noting that the developers of many new super-skyscrapers have been sticking huge, "useless" needles on top of them so they can be marketed as being among the world`s tallest.
The trend means that many towers now appearing on lists of super-tall buildings actually have fewer usable floors and lower roofs than the old behemoths they are knocking out of the top ranks.
New York City`s unfinished One World Trade Center is listed as being among the top offenders, thanks to the 124m needle installed on its roof, but it`s hardly the worst in terms of "vanity height."
The entire top 40 per cent of Dubai`s Burj Al Arab is purely decorative.
The council, based in Chicago, the spiritual home of the skyscraper, says 44 of the world`s 72 tallest buildings got over the symbolic 300m mark by adding a decorative spire.
The phenomenon of adding vanity height to a building is nothing new.
The Chrysler Building`s spire was part of a famous trick, being hidden inside the structure until a competing building was completed.
In 1930, the developers of New York`s Chrysler Building famously won a race to become the world`s tallest by secretly assembling a 38m steel spire in the tower`s tip, and then hoisting it into place only after competitors at 40 Wall Street had finished adding floors to their building.