BURJ KHALIFA, THE TALLEST BUILDING IN THE WORLD

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Dubai, the most impressive city of not only the UAE and probably the whole Middle East. The thermometer marks 44 degrees Celsius. From the airport, blurred amidst a dust cloud, a group of skyscrapers can be seen, forming the typical "downtown" of occidental cities. However, here, the silhouette of one huge mass dominates the sight. Almost like a mountain, it rises high above the other buildings: the Burj Dubai, recently renamed as Burj Khalifa in honour of the President of the UAE.


Burj Dubai (or Dubai Tower) is the world's tallest building with respect to all categories. Already officially completed in January 4th, with its 818 meters, it has already surpassed all structures that have previously held the record beyond expectations. It is also another source of pride for the entire region. For the first time since 1313 (when the Lincoln Cathedral was built in England), the title of the tallest structure in the world has returned to the Middle East, where it had belonged to for thousands of years due to the Egyptian pyramids.



The Burj Dubai was designed by Adrian Smith (an American architect who together with Gordon Hill runs an agency specialized on large urban developments) and the renowned company SOM (Skidmore, Owins & Merrill, responsible among other projects, for the Sears Tower in Chicago; also the highest in the world at the time of its completion).
The construction is conducted by a consortium led by the Korean company Samsung Engineering and Construction (responsible for other skyscrapers such as the Petronas Towers in Malaysia or the Taipei 101 in Taiwan, also the tallest buildings in the world at the time of their completion). The interior layout of the Dubai Tower was assigned to Gregory Armani. In other words, the developers have ensured to bring together renowned international companies for the accomplishment of the project.


CONCEPT

The Burj Dubai is in fact part of a huge multi-purpose complex that includes shopping centers, homes, hotels and entertainment centers. The so-called Dubai Mall (the largest in the world) located within this complex is already completed in its construction. So are the Burj Dubai Lake Hotel and some residential as well as office towers. Also the development of 3 acres of public parks is included. A large artificial lake has been already finished.


The program of Burj Dubai includes, in addition to offices, the accommodation of the Armani Hotel with 75 rooms, and - for the first time in the history of such high buildings - residential housing; 144 luxury apartments ($40.000 square meter) and 800 more "popular" departments.

Like the Petronas Towers, the conceptual design of the Burj Dubai considers Islamic patterns, which are based on geometric and floral motifs, in specific on the flower Hymenocallis (curiously, a plant endemic to America).



The design of the tower stylizes three "petals" arranged in a triangular shape and unified at the center. However, instead of repeated identical patterns, the architectural plan appoints successively receding and rotated stories, resembling a spiral ziggurat.


The concrete and steel skeleton is being covered with a skin of glass, aluminum and steel, so I reckoned that the building would require extensive air conditioning, due to the increased heat generated by the glass walls. In fact though, the glass is double-sided. A thin metal coating on the outer surface refracts the sun's ultraviolet rays and hence prevents the interior from overheating. The inside face is coated with a thin silver layer that protects the building from the infrared radiation of the desert sands. In other words, generous admission of light is permitted, but not of heat.


However, it is one thing to conceptualize a magnificent construction and quite another to realize it. Especially with respect to this type of constructions, the gap between utopia and reality is huge and implies hard work to overcome it.


Having a closer look at this monumental work, I am only left with admiration for the extraordinary competence of the engineers to plan the impressive structure, work out new methods for its foundation and advance its accomplishment in such an efficient and fast way.

Hundreds of reinforced-concrete piles needed to be planted in order to arrive at sufficiently consistent ground and to sustain the enormous weight of the structure on the unsteady sand of the desert.

My admiration also goes to the construction workers, thousands of Indians, Pakistanis, Filipinos and other nationalities who have come to work in shifts 24 hours a day under extreme heat conditions (and often very low wages) to execute this work in record time (at times this peaks in the construction of one floor every 4 days).

December 2004

December 2005April 2008
See location on Google Maps

COMPETITION FOR BEING THE TALLEST

Officially, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Development, the height of the Burj Dubai will not be registered as a new record until its completion.

- Extant structure: KVLY-TV Antenna, North Dakota, USA 628.8 m (1963). 628.8 m (1963).
- Freestanding structure: CN Tower, Toronto, Canada. 553.3 m (1976) 553.3 m (1976)
- Building (from the floor to the needle): Taipei 101, Taipei, Taiwan. 508.2 m (2003) 508.2 m (2003)
- Building (from the floor to the antenna) Sears Tower, Chicago, USA 527 m (1973) 527 m (1973)
- Building with most floors: Sears Tower, Chicago, USA - 83

All these records have been largely bypassed by the Dubai Tower with its 818 m and 160 floors. It also has the world's fastest the elevators, at 35 km / h.

CRITICISM

Upon seeing the Burj Dubai, I could not help thinking of the famous Tower of Babel. Besides teaching us the construction techniques of the ziggurats of the ancient Babylon (baked brick and pitch), the story of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11, 1-9), illustrates two fundamental aspects: 1) There has always been interest in building as high as possible. 2) There have always been critical detractors of this idea (the biblical author among them).

The Burj Khalifa, the tallest structure that we have been able to build as human species, is it cause for celebration or for criticism? Or both?

On one side, there are those who favor the creation of vertical cities. They permit concentration of services and infrastructure and at the same time maximize usage of the land. Replacing the 33 acres of constructed area by low-density buildings would bear comparison with a small city. Considering motorways, lighting, water and sewage networks, and transportation to be added, it would be less sustainable and also less efficient.

On the other hand, there are those who find these structures only built for the purpose of accumulating superlatives and records, counterproductive, considering the enormous costs involved in the construction. To arrive at the extreme of what materials can withstand, investment in new methods are necessary (e.g. due to the extreme temperatures, the concrete had to be poured at night and ice applied to keep its consistency. Special technology had to be applied to enable this at such heights etc. ). Further, a permanent concentration of so many people in one place (about 35,000) poses an enormous security risk factor.

To this controversy adds the more philosophical position of Rem Koolhaas, in the sense that the skyscraper has failed in its attempt to create a place (Koolhaas, who at one point was asked to design the world's tallest building in Beijing, he later opted for a unique building, the CCTV Tower).

The criticism found echo in proposals for an even taller tower in Dubai called Al-Burj, meant to reach 1.2 km up into the sky. A project which, thanks to the global economy crisis, has been canceled.

It seems absurd that a single city should invest into possessing two giant towers, that reminds of the competition between the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building in New York during the 1930s.

Comparación del Buj Dubai con el proyecto del Al Burj, cancelado por la crisis económica Comparison of the Buj Dubai's Al Burj project, canceled by the economic crisis

Whatsoever, I am convinced the celebrations after finalization of the Burj Dubai will be grandiose. Since the completion is planned for September, I cannot tell you what it feels like to look at the world from above (unfortunately, I suspect that you cannot see too much... the desert dust condemns Dubai to poor visibility). But I can tell you what can be see from the ground, from the artificial lake: the most impressive musical fountain spectacle of the world, the water jets of which reach up to 150 m high. I have attached a video below. (click here if you can not see the video)(click here if you can not see the video).

SEE ALSO

SKYSCARPERS

• Burj Al Arab, Dubai, UAE (Thomas Wright)
• Shard, Renzo Piano. London, UK
• Oriental Pearl, Shanghai, China. Jia Huan Cheng (1991-95)
• Umeda Sky Buiding, Osaka, Japan. Hiroshi Hara (1993)