List of tallest buildings
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tall buildings, such as skyscrapers, are intended here as enclosed structures with continuously occupiable floors and a height of at least 340 metres (1,120 ft). Such definition excludes non-building structures, such as towers.
Historically, the world's tallest man-made structure was the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, which held the position for over 3800 years[3] until the construction of Lincoln Cathedral in 1311. The Strasbourg Cathedral in France, completed in 1439, was the world's tallest building until 1874.
The first skyscraper was pioneered in Chicago with the 138 ft (42.1 m) Home Insurance Building in 1885. The United States would remain the location of the world's tallest building throughout the 20th century until 1998, when the Petronas Towers were completed. Since then, two other buildings have gained the title: Taipei 101 in 2004 and Burj Khalifa in 2010.[4] Since the beginning of the 21st century, the Middle East, China, and Southeast Asia have experienced booms in skyscraper construction.[5]
The international non-profit organization Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) was formed in 1969 and announces the title of "The World's Tallest Building" and sets the standards by which buildings are measured. It maintains a list of the 100 tallest completed buildings in the world.[6] The organization currently ranks Burj Khalifa in Dubai as the tallest at 828 m (2,717 ft).[6] However, the CTBUH only recognizes buildings that are complete, and some buildings included within the lists in this article are not considered finished by the CTBUH.
In 1996, as a response to the dispute as to whether the Petronas Towers or the Sears Tower was taller,[7] the council listed and ranked buildings in four categories:[8]
- height to structural or architectural top;
- height to floor of highest occupied floor;
- height to top of roof (removed as category in November 2009);[9] and
- height to top of any part of the building.
All categories measure the building from the level of the lowest significant open-air pedestrian entrance.[10]
Spires are considered integral parts of the architectural design of buildings, changes to which would substantially change the appearance and design of the building, whereas antennas may be added or removed without such consequences. The Petronas Towers, with their spires, are thus ranked higher than the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) with its antennas, despite the Petronas Towers' lower roofs and lower highest point.[8]
Until 1996, the world's tallest building was defined by the height to the top of the tallest architectural element, including spires but not antennae.[8] In 1930, this definitional argument led to a rivalry between the Bank of Manhattan Building and the Chrysler Building. The Bank of Manhattan Building (i.e. 40 Wall Street) employed only a short spire, was 282.5 m (927 ft) tall, and had a much higher top occupied floor (the second category in the 1996 criteria for tallest building). In contrast, the Chrysler Building employed a very large 38.1 m (125 ft) spire secretly assembled inside the building to claim the title of world's tallest building with a total height of 318.9 m (1,046 ft), although it had a lower top occupied floor and a shorter height when both buildings' spires were excluded.
Upset by Chrysler's victory, Shreve & Lamb, the consulting architects of the Bank of Manhattan Building, wrote a newspaper article claiming that their building was actually the tallest, since it contained the world's highest usable floor, at 255 m (837 ft). They pointed out that the observation deck in the Bank of Manhattan Building was nearly 30 m (98 ft) above the top floor in the Chrysler Building, whose surpassing spire was strictly ornamental and inaccessible.[11]
The Burj Khalifa currently tops the list by some margin, regardless of which criterion is applied.[12][13]