NEW YORK — 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 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 have fewer usable floors and lower roofs than the old behemoths they are knocking out of the top ranks.
New York’s unfinished One World Trade Center is listed as being among the top offenders, thanks to its 408-foot needle, but it’s hardly the worst in terms of “vanity height.” The top 40 percent of Dubai’s Burj Al Arab is purely decorative.
The phenomenon is nothing new. In 1930, the developers of New York’s Chrysler Building won a race to become the world’s tallest by secretly assembling a 125-foot-tall 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.
Tallest buildings
2,716 feet: Burj Khalifa, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
1,972: Makkah Royal Clock Tower Hotel, Mecca, Saudi Arabia
E 1,776: One World Trade Center, New York
1,667: Taipei 101, Taiwan
1,614: Shanghai World Financial Center, China
1,588: International Commerce Center, Hong Kong
1,483: Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
1,476: Nanjing Greenland Financial Complex, China
1,450: Willis Tower, Chicago
1,449: KK100, Shenzhen, China
