The most obvious question must be WHY!
WHY would anyone want to build a skyscraper ONE KILOMETRE high? (It was originally intended to be ONE MILE high!)
The problems in building such a tall tower are almost countless. Imagine the pressure needed for water distribution, how long it would take to get to the top, or even the complications of the sewerage system.
I hear that to reach the pinnacle several different lifts will be needed as the chains begin to stretch after a certain distance. This means taking one lift to a first level, then taking another one, and then (if one was mad enough to live at the top) taking a third. Anyone buying the penthouse apartment would need to spend quite a while in three separate lifts to get home; you wouldn't want to forget to buy the cat food!
Saudi Arabia is not short of empty space (unlike London or New York), so going 'sideways' is not an issue.
This silly billion dollar Kingdom Tower is just a big ego-trip for Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal. He wants THE TALLEST; perhaps he has shortcomings in another area.
Maybe, when it's finished, the whole caboodle will be blown over by a sudden gust of desert wind; you wouldn't get Cro up there, that's for sure!
Excellent pictures. I believe it might be a giant hypodermic needle to inject ego or idiocy into the stratosphere.
ReplyDeleteI get nervous just looking at it, no way I would get in there...
ReplyDeleteThese sort of buildings used to be called follies. I was under the impression they were confined to UK in previous centuries. Obviously I was wrong.
ReplyDeleteRidiculous! No way I'd go up there!
ReplyDeleteJust looking at it gives me the vapours....it must be a strange cove that wants to live in it.
ReplyDeleteVery ugly too.
DeleteIt will be interesting in years to come to see how stable the 'building' is and how it weathers time.
ReplyDeleteI'd rather have my feet on the ground, but to each their own.
ReplyDeleteThere is such a building in the city down the road, called Humbard's folly. Years and years ago he had a television evangelical business going, and built a huge complex to the glory, including a concrete tower, rather like a nuclear reactor tower. Eventually it was tall enough to need warning lights for aircraft, and the city shut down the project because the architects couldn't figure out how to flush toilets from the top floor. That's the reason I heard, at any rate.
ReplyDeleteWhy would anyone wish to go up? Sounds a bit like 'mine's bigger than yours' ego trip to me.
ReplyDeleteUnbelievably disgusting. Buildings should have character.....that one has none.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what happened with my spacing!
DeleteDid you press the 'dramatic' button?
DeleteI believe they drive large cars too. What is it they say about large cars making up for undersize something or other?
ReplyDeleteThe thing's an abomination.
The North Koreans have a hotel that is an attempt at the world's tallest building. I definitely wont he going up that one.
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