Battle of the skyscrapers

A building frenzy is raging in Asia, Russia and the Persian Gulf. And cities like New York don't have the money to compete. Will the West soon look outdated?

By Ulrike Knöfel, Frank Hornig and Bernhard Zand

Read more: New York, Europe, London, China, Russia, Politics, News, Architecture

June 9, 2008 |
For an entire century, New York was the city of skyscrapers, the epitome of the vertical city. It just kept growing into the sky, faster and faster. It was an exhilarating adventure in stone, steel and glass -- and seemingly unsurpassable.

In "Delirious New York," his legendary 1978 book about the giant city of skyscrapers and its magic, the young Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas raved about what he called the "colonization of the sky."

Even the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center have not diminished the enthusiasm the now world-famous architect has for the skyscraper as a model of success. Despite the disaster, says Koolhaas, the skyscraper is still "about the only type of building that has survived the leap into the 21st century."

Koolhaas is apparently right. The tower has survived as both a form of architecture and a status symbol. The impressiveness of a city's skyline is seen as a reflection of its prosperity. Skyscrapers serve as a physical expression of an economic upswing, and bear witness to an economy's level of adrenaline.

From a Western perspective, at least, this is precisely the problem. Economically booming megacities -- such as Beijing, Shanghai and Dubai -- where extravagant skyscrapers are shooting up all over, mean that cities like New York are beginning to look old and outdated, despite attempts to modernize. In Europe, the eastern part is beginning to look more modern than the western part. Cities like Istanbul and Moscow are more dynamic than London, Paris or Milan.

There have never been this many skyscrapers on the drawing boards, and most of them are planned for the world's new boomtowns. The West is eyeing this development with jealousy, all the more intense for its inability to compete. The massive downturn in the American credit market has caused the cancellation or postponement of many major architectural and urban-planning projects.

The battle for the best skyline, which has been under way for more than 100 years, is entering a new round. And it already seems clear who the winners will be: the Middle East and the Far East. Kazakhstan and Qatar could soon be aesthetically more dominant than Europe or the United States. It is an architectural clash of civilizations. One of the most ironic aspects of this development is that, in many cases, it is the West's leading architects who are driving the transition. Working for newly enriched governments and real-estate tycoons, they are being given free rein to do what would now be inconceivable in their home countries.

An angular building in the shape of a colossal triumphal arch? One designed by Koolhaas was recently completed in Beijing to serve as the headquarters of China Central Television.

A landscape of tall, asymmetrical buildings reminiscent of icebergs? One designed by American architect Steven Holl now stands in the Chinese city of Chengdu.

A pyramid for Moscow that climbs 450 meters (1,476 feet)? It is the work of prominent London architect Lord Norman Foster, who is also designing Crystal Island, the Moscow development that will include it. According to Foster, it is the "world's most ambitious construction project."

The megalomania of this boomtown euphoria requires more than just tall buildings. Nowadays, spectacular shapes and glittering surfaces are in demand, eccentricities that are noticeable even from great distances. The "wow effect" is everything; it translates into structures mimicking lilies, harps, trophies, tents and other unconventional shapes.

Hamburg, Germany, architect Volkwin Marg, who runs a thriving business in China with his partner Meinhard von Gerkan, isn't fond of this tendency toward representational building. For Marg, these "iconic buildings" lack social significance.

Peter Schweger, another architect from Hamburg, describes the current trend as "absurd, atrocious blossoms of sculptural architecture." He has also noticed an impact on Western architectural aesthetics, where "buildings are starting to be designed like commercial products that can be aggressively marketed." Schweger describes his own skyscraper designs, such as the reflective Twin Towers he designed for Moscow, as rational.

The investor and the other architect collaborating in the Twin Towers project are Russian, while most of the construction workers are Chinese. At 500 meters (1,640 feet), the larger of the two towers -- with its so-called panorama needle -- will go down in history as one of the tallest buildings in Europe.

But not for long.

Schweger has just signed a contract to design a new business park in Moscow. The development will consist of 400,000 square meters (4.3 million square feet) of office space. Compared with its surroundings, though, this almost seems modest. As Schweger puts it, the amount of new construction under way in the Russian capital "is almost difficult to fathom."

Schweger is critical of Russian building standards. "Many buildings are 10 years behind the Western standard technologically," he says. "The developers have no interest in questions of energy efficiency."

There are other good reasons to criticize today's hectic global building trend -- aesthetic, environmental and ethical reasons. But few investors or architects are interested. Instead, they prefer to immortalize themselves and watch their towers grow.

Calling it "too brutal," Schweger says he's not interested in China. Instead, he is focusing his design efforts on a collection of skyscrapers in Dubai, part of a development somewhat cheesily named "Dubai Pearl."

The emirate of Dubai is the promised land for real-estate speculators. It is said that half of all construction cranes in the world are in Dubai. But is architectural history really being written there?

Next page: "Almost everything here is paid for with oil money, but not our own"