Dubai Tower to surpass Taipei 101 in height

Designed to reach at least 808 meters with 160 floors, the tower in the United Arab Emirates on Saturday beat Taipei 101’s height as it reached 512.1 meters, its developer Emaar Properties announced.

The developer wants the spire-shaped glass-and-steel structure to be the world’s tallest building, meeting criteria of the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat for the highest structural top, the highest occupied floor, the top of the roof and the tip of the spire or flagpole.

Management of the Taipei 101 tower said the news their building had been overtaken was anticipated.

“Heights are created to be surpassed, so it is natural that Burj Dubai has surpassed us,” Taipei 101 spokesman Michael Liu told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa on Sunday.

Liu said the Taipei 101 building, which opened in January 2004, has been and will continue to be a testimony to Taiwan’s prosperity.

“It has become Taipei’s landmark and will continue to be Taipei’s landmark,” he said.

The Taipei city government decided to build Taipei 101 in the 1990s to develop Tapei’s Hsinyi District, then a grass-covered open space and a suburb of Taipei, into a financial hub.

The skyscraper’s formal name is the Taipei Financial Center. It is called Taipei 101 because it has 101 floors.

The designers planned to build a twin tower with each building having 66 floors, but Taipei mayor Chen Shui-bian, now Taiwan’s president, ordered the construction of the world’s tallest skyscraper to raise Taiwan’s international status.

Most Taiwanese welcomed the idea. Taiwan has been suffering from international isolation since it lost its United Nations seat to China in 1971, and is recognized by only two dozen mostly small and poor nations.

China, which sees Taiwan as its breakaway province awaiting reunification with the motherland, has barred Taiwan from entering international organizations. It even prevents Taiwan’s current and former leaders from visiting countries that have diplomatic ties with Beijing, virtually putting them under house arrest on the Taiwan island as more than 170 countries recognize China. Taipei 101 took six years and US$1.8 billion to build. It was designed by Taiwan’s CY Lee Associates and was built by a consortium led by Japan’s Kumagai Gumi and comprising talents from 45 countries.

The building used special techniques to counter the impact of earthquakes and typhoons, which are common in Taiwan. It is shaped like a bamboo stalk because to Chinese, bamboo implies life and energy. Feng shui masters are believed to have said the shape could bring good luck to the businesses inside. Luck aside, the tower will take at least three more years to break even, although it has been reaping profits from leasing floor space to offices and shops, and from charging visitors on the observation deck on the 89th floor.

Since its opening, 2.5 million people have visited the observation deck to get a bird’s eye view of Taipei, paying NT$350 (US$10) each for a ride to the observation deck on the world’s fastest elevator, built by Japan’s Toshiba company.

Liu said the Taipei 101 management team is happy that Burj Dubai is now the world’s tallest building, and is proud that some of the teams or experts who helped build tower have been recruited for the Burj Dubai.

Since the Taipei 101 opened, the Hsinyi District has been developed into a bustling business zone with wide boulevards lined with office buildings, banks, shopping centers, cinemas, restaurants and cafes.

“It blends naturally with its surroundings. So although it towers above the buildings and bungalow houses in the Taipei basin, it does not look out of place,” Wei Zhi-ping, a Beijing engineer who recently visited the Taipei 101 as part of a delegation of Chinese architects, told dpa.

Ordinary Taiwanese are not bothered that the Taipei 101 has lost the “world’s tallest building” title to Burj Dubai.

“The Taipei 101 will continue to be Taipei’s landmark and a vital part of our lives. I think it is a very beautiful building and a comfortable place for eating, drinking, shopping or simply walking around,” Lai Chin-chiang, a 30-year-old magazine editor, said.

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