Skyscrapers

Previously known as 'Mile-High Tower', the $1.23bn (SR4.6bn) will be the centrepiece and is the first phase of a $20bn (SR75bn) development known as Kingdom City, located along the Red Sea on the north side of Jeddah.

Less than a year after construction was halted on a world-beating 838m tower in Changsa in central China (just days after it began) architects have revealed plans to build something even taller.

President Barack Obama ventured onto the hallowed ground of the World Trade Center site Thursday, getting a firsthand look at the skyscraper being built to replace the twin towers destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

The US$1.2 billion (RM4 billion) project has been plagued by setbacks since it was first proposed in 2011, but above-ground work on the Jeddah super skyscraper will commence next month, Building reports.

The world’s tallest tower and Japan’s biggest new landmark, the Tokyo Skytree, opened to the public last Tuesday. It is only second to the world’s tallest structure, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, which stands 828 metres. The Tokyo Skytree stands at 634m. These tall structures are classified under different categories – buildings or skyscrapers and towers, each required to meet a host of specifications to qualify.

Bauer has been appointed to construct the foundations for Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom Tower, which at 1,001m will be the first building in the world to be taller than 1km. The Kingdom Tower, which is being constructed by Saudi Binladin Group, will take the title of the world’s tallest building from the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill Architecture has unveiled plans for Imperial Tower, which would become Mumbai's tallest building and surely one of the world's most slender skyscrapers, should it come to be built.

A Jeddah-based project to build the tallest tower in the world has been given the go-ahead after it received its final license, Chairman of Kingdom Holding Company (KHC) Prince Alwaleed bin Talal confirmed.

Financing for the kilometre-high Kingdom Tower is complete, Talal Al Maiman, chief executive officer and managing director of Kingdom Real Estate Development Co., said in an interview in Shanghai on Friday. The Kingdom Tower in Jeddah will eclipse today’s highest skyscraper — the 828-metre Burj Khalifa in Dubai — when completed in 2018. The tower is expected to cost $1.2 billion to build, with construction expected to be concluded in about five- and-a-half years, the company has said.

A mile-high skyscraper — almost double the height of today's record-holder — might be a reality by 2025 as developing countries lavish cash on an ego-fueled race to put up the world's tallest building. “If you have enough money, I'm sure the human mind can create a lot higher,” said Timothy Johnson, chairman of the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, widely recognized as the world's arbiter of tallest structures.