World's Top 10 Tallest Buildings 2021
We humans have always been obsessed with reaching higher, building taller, and touching the sky. In effect, we have been building towers and buildings each taller than the other, even since the infancy of construction engineering. Today, we will look at the world's 10 tallest buildings in 2021.
Building tall has always been a difficult job. A highrise is susceptible to many dangers that don't generally affect normal-height buildings. For example, when you rise 500 feet or more, the air current starts to become a serious issue even for reinforced concrete structures. Earthquakes become much more dangerous at great heights as well, where the seismic waves make buildings sway and rock side-to-side. Overcoming these challenges and more is what makes these feats of mega-engineering stand proud, not only their height.
Now, without further ado, let's have a look into the top ten tallest buildings in 2021.
10. Shanghai World Financial Center
1614 feet / Shanghai, China
The second tallest building in Shanghai takes the tenth place on our top ten highest buildings list. A total of 101 floors are packed in this building with three of them underground. It is a very easy building to move around, with 93 lifts and 33 escalators providing access to its 4 million square foot usable floor area. This is another masterful creation of Kohn Pedersen Fox and China State Construction Engineering Corp, opened for mixed use in 2008.
9. Taipei 101
1667 feet / Taipei, Taiwan
Featured in many videos, the tallest building in Taipei is famous for its unique shape and awesome fireworks display every year. It houses lots of hotels, offices, apartments, and an observatory deck. The building has the world's most famous tuned mass damper in the form of a giant steel ball hanging from above, which counteracts any swaying motion beautifully.
8. Goldin Finance 117
1957 feet / Tianjin, China
Also known as the China 117 tower is another unfinished building on our world's top 10 tallest buildings list, which started in 2008 but still remains under construction.
It was designed to resemble a walking stick and has that kind of look too, earning its local nickname as the same. At the moment, construction is halted on site and it is used for recreational purposes, such as urban exploring.
7. One World Trade Center
1776 feet / NYC, USA
The super-skyscraper built to commemorate the 9/11 incident features in the seventh position of our list. It is also known as the Freedom Tower or One WTC. It is the numero uno tallest building in the United States and the western hemisphere as well. It stands on the northwest corner of the World Trade Center site which previously used to house the original 6 trade centers. It was designed by David Childs and its height was deliberately set to reflect the year of signing the Declaration of Independence of the USA, 1776.
6. Lotte World Tower
1819 feet / Seoul, South Korea
The fifth tallest super-skyscraper in the world was opened in Seoul in 2017, with super-luxury hotels, malls, and apartments distributed around its 123 floors (6 underground). Kohn Pedersen Fox designed the building and Lotte Engineering & Construction broke ground in 2009. The building features six observation decks, with glass floors and telescopes.
5. Ping An Finance Center
1965 feet / Shenzhen, China
Chasing the above closely is the Ping An Finance Center in Shenzhen, China's second tallest building. The American architectural firm Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates designed the massive building and China Construction First Building Group built it up through 2010 to 2017.
The building shared the record of the highest observation deck at 562 meters with Shanghai Tower, and has 120 floors, 5 of them underground. The building was intended for office, retail, and hotel usage, and has a precise 1 to 10 width to height ratio.
4. Makkah Royal Clock Tower
1972 feet / Mecca, Saudi Arabia
A part of the huge hotel complex Abraj Al-Bait, the Makkah Clock Tower is the second tallest building in the Gulf region, overlooking the Mecca Square. It contains multiple prayer rooms, hotels, shopping malls, parking garages, and much more. It also has an islamic museum.
3. Shanghai Tower
2073 feet / Shanghai, China
China's tallest building, the Shanghai Tower, is 128 stories tall and is located in Pudong, Shanghai. It also houses the highest observation deck in the world at 562 meter. Furthermore, it houses some of the world's finest and fastest elevators (46 mph). It started construction in 2008 and was inaugurated in 2013.
The architects Jun Xia and Marshall Strabala created a beautiful exterior for this huge landmark, constructed by the Shanghai Construction Group. It is a great example of green building application; having many great environment-friendly features such as clever use of glass to reduce wind pressure at high levels, using 270 wind turbines to generate most of its own energy, and much more. As a result, It is called the world's greenest super-skyscraper.
2. Burj Khalifa
2717 feet / Dubai, Saudi Arabia
The tallest building now open to the public is the Burj Khalifa, it was previously named Burj Dubai. I was changed to honor the ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa, when he financed the project to finish in 2010. Developed as the large scale mixed use centerpiece of Dubai, Burj Khalifa caters to every crowd.
Adrian Smith, the king of tall buildings, was again the architect here, designing 154 standard floors with an additional 9 maintenance floors. The gigantic edifice has over 3 million square footage of usable floor space, accessible by 57 elevators. It cost 1.5 billion dollars to erect this behemoth, and is now owned by Emaar Properties.
1. Jeddah Tower
3281 feet / Jeddah, Soudi Arabia
Previously known as the Kingdom Tower, this massive building is set to be the world's first 1km+ building ever. A creation of Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill Architecture, Jeddah Tower is set to open soon when the construction work by the Saudi BinLadin Group finishes.
The Jeddah Tower is planned to have two basements and 168 floors, the topmost of which will be situated at a dizzying height of 2192 feet. 59 elevators provide access to the 243,886 square meters of carpet area of the gigantic building. The Jeddah Tower will be a multipurpose building good for offices, hotels, residential apartments, observation platforms, entertainment, and retail.
