The world is a beautiful place in more ways than one. Mother Nature isn’t the only one contributing to that beauty. Among the thousands of ordinary brick-and-mortar buildings making up the bulk of the urban landscape, skyscrapers are architectural and engineering marvels that rise hundreds of meters into the air, overlooking all others. The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) is the official body that determines which buildings fall into the “The World’s Tallest Buildings” category. It ranks the height of buildings based on the height to the architectural top of the building, highest occupied floor, top of the roof or the tip of the building.

Let us look at what the CTBUH says are the world’s tallest buildings as of now.

Taipei 101, Taipei, Taiwan – 1671 ft (509 m) 101 Floors

Taipei 101 became the world’s tallest building to be constructed in the new millennium and the first to cross the half-kilometer mark. The construction cost was $1.76 billion and it was completed in 2004. This multi-use steel-and-glass skyscraper was designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners and has 61 elevators. It reflects the traditional Chinese pagoda, with a soaring podium base, eight tiers of eight stories (eight is considered a number representing prosperous growth in China), narrow pinnacle tower, and a spire.

The building has an 18 ft, 882-ton ball-shaped damper at the top that counteracts swaying motions during typhoons and earthquakes. Although CTBUH only takes into consideration the floors above ground level, there are 5 floors underground too. The number “101” represents not only the number of floors, but also the mailing code of Taipei’s international business district. It was hailed as one of the Seven New Wonders of the World by Newsweek magazine in 2006 and as one of the Seven Wonders of Engineering by The Discovery Channel in 2005.

Shanghai World Financial Center – 1614 ft (492 m) 101 Floors

This super-tall skyscraper in Shanghai dominates the skyline over East China and is destined to become a symbolic icon, giving the city a new status and depicts the arrival of a new era in Asia. It was designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox and officially opened its doors to the public on August 28, 2008. It is a mixed-use building with excellent urban shopping malls at the base, a 174-room luxurious five-star hotel at the top and sixty-two floors filled with offices. There are three observation decks between the 94th and the 100th levels. It has a total of 31 elevators and the construction cost was US $1.2 billion. The most remarkable feature of this majestic building is the aperture at the top of the building. It is the 2nd tallest building in the world. (more…)