Towers: fighting a rearguard battle?

摘要

How can anyone be unmoved by the skyline of Chicago, New York or Hong Kong? These upright cities have a look that energizes each and every urbanite. Despite excessive destruction, they show skyscraper architecture, still offering enchanted and impressed visitors a fine collection of single high-quality works of architecture among many horrific or boring buildings. The Americanization of the world made highways, towers, air-conditioning, shopping malls, suburbs and many more signs of modernity fashionable and thus predominant. The tower, born in the 19th century with metal construction, the elevator and the telephone, is above all the built expression of an arrogant capitalism. It signalizes the success of a financial corporation, the power of a daily newspaper or television channel, the supremacy of an insurance company. In other words, it is a logo, never mind the costs or profitability. Its size justifies its existence. Hence the incredible, almost childish one-upmanship among cities, companies and even architects: today it is Dubai, but which megacity will have the highest tower next year? In just over a century, the builders of this dated - and from now on obsolete -object have passed from the avant-garde to the rearguard.