Who's Tall Now?

摘要

You'd think it would be tough to cloak a nearly 1,900-foot-tall building in secrecy, yet that's exactly what's happening with the proposed China 117 Tower in Tianjin, China, and many other skyscrapers still in the proposal or early building phases. Which is why Philip Oldfield, a research coordinator at the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, compiled a "Tallest 20 in 2020" list last November as well as a list of the 50 tallest proposed buildings in January, unveiling some of the mysteries for a greater collective understanding. "We used strict criteria on real proposals that are moving forward," says Oldfield. The Chicago Spire and 1 World Trade Center, both under way, are the only North American buildings on the 2020 list. "If you made this list 30 years ago, you'd have predicted the majority of the buildings would be steel office buildings in North America," Oldfield says, adding that today's tallest buildings are primarily residential or mixed-use, made of concrete, and located in Asia and the Middle East.