Come April you can stay in the Burj Khalifa
Blogged by Nahk.
But all that buzz misses two other symbolic milestones that should enliven the history books. Namely, the Burj Khalifa is primarily residential and its structural frame is reinforced concrete.
Why are these two facts so important? The pursuit of maximum altitude is a major technological undertaking, requiring extraordinary economic investment, significant innovations in materials and a high tolerance for risk; as we survey the monuments of architectural history, tall structures provide remarkable insights about the aspirations of the societies that created them.
Think back to the middle ages. The soaring cathedrals of Notre-Dame de Paris and Chartres were awe-inspiring landmarks in stone. Gothic churches maximised the structural capacity of available materials, transforming heavy rock into delicate, lofted skeletons enclosing voluminous spaces. Pilgrims to these edifices would no doubt have been awed by their apparent defiance of gravity, and moved by the breathtaking spiritual power conveyed by the churches’ vast, light-pierced interiors.
Now jump to the end of the 19th century. With the complementary technological developments of the steel frame and elevator, the ability to stack floor plates at heights inconceivable in stone constituted an explosive return on land investment.
For the first time, the tallest buildings in town were no longer churches. The skyscrapers that shot up in Chicago and New York were “cathedrals of commerce”, abounding in office space and brimming with enterprising workers.
The Empire State Building was constructed at a breakneck pace — 410 days — in order to beat the Chrysler Building and 40 Wall Street for the title of tallest building in the world. When the skyscraper opened in 1931, it was a sensational and unprecedented marriage of steel and commerce, and it would retain its title as tallest for four decades. Its two million square feet of office space still accommodate about 21,000 employees working for 1,000 companies; the tower has its own ZIP code.
So what of the marvel recently constructed in West Asia? From a technological standpoint, it’s profoundly impressive that a reinforced concrete frame has outperformed the steel of Taipei 101 — the previous record holder for height — by 1,050 feet. This achievement suggests a new era in structural engineering: the compressive strength of concrete has tripled in the last four decades, allowing concrete structures to be thinner, lighter and far, far taller.
Also notable is the fact that the world’s tallest building is dedicated entirely to opulent residences and various retail, entertainment and commercial functions. The Burj Khalifa amounts to a kind of vertical city for the affluent.
Because the Burj Khalifa has arrived as the global economy lies smouldering in ruins, it’s tempting to view it as an exceptional antique, the product of a culture that’s already disappearing.
But new highs in architecture don’t always coincide with the health of the market — the Empire State Building was also built during the Depression. And great innovations in materials and structures have the power to endure, regardless of the circumstances under which they were born
As far as I am concerned, standing on the observation at a height of approximately 1450 feet on the Burj Khalifa and looking out to the city of Dubai on one side and the Gulf of Persia is a truly exhilarating achievement.
