Tall

I spotted a CNN Fake News article on the progress on the soon to be tallest building in the world, the Jeddah Tower, today.

Here’s how it’s looking so far:

And here’s how it’s going to look in just a couple of years time:

Yep – a building so tall that it won’t even fit onto the rendering of itself. Incredible.

The Jeddah Tower is costing $1.4billion to build, and will stretch an incredible 1,000m into the sky. One thousand. A whole kilometre.
That’s exactly the same height as Devils Peak in Cape Town. And that’s a mountain.
252 storeys. 243,866 square meters of space and an outdoor(!) observation platform 660m up. Lifts that go at 12.5mph (that’s quite fast, apparently).

Amazing numbers.

It’s already 252m high in the top photograph. And to put that into perspective, Cape Town’s tallest building is currently the 139m Portside building, will “soon” be the 148m Zero2One building and may then be the 192m Cullinan Square building. (c.f. Carlton Centre, Johannesburg – 223m; Ponte Tower, Johannesburg – 173m)

The Jeddah Tower is already 25% taller than that proposed future development and it’s only a quarter done. Nuts.

And, by the time this behemoth is completed, the Burj Khalifa (828m) won’t even be the second tallest building in the world. No, that will be “The Tower” in Dubai:

For a city that prides itself on creativity and innovation, “The Tower” is a bit of a disappointing moniker. Apparently, it’s going to be “at least” 928m high, but it’s worryingly difficult to actually find any consensus on exactly how high they’re planning to make it. Surely they work these things out before they start? This isn’t Lego.

Look, I’m sure… fairly sure… that they know what they’re doing.

 

Oh, and please never forget the KVLY Mast in this mad race for the sky…

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