The South African Civil Society Information Service

Extreme Skyscrapers: Precursors to Recession
21 Jan 2010

Dubbed the "half-mile high tower," at 828 metres, Dubai's recently completed Burj Khalifa is the world's newest tallest building.

Professor Philip Goad, Professor of Architecture at the University of Melbourne, Australia, argues, "Modern skyscrapers are simply 'very large consumer objects' that value excess over practicality and often indicate approaching economic doom. High-rises like the new Burj Khalifa in Dubai are a 'result of too much money...and too little thinking'."

Dubai recently made headlines for its US$100bn debt pile. To enable its completion, the Burj Khalifa was bailed out by the benefactor after whom it is named from neighbouring United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan.

Very tall buildings are only symbols, contends Professor Lawrence Nield, Adjunct Professor of Architecture at the University of New South Wales, Australia. They are not economically useful. The Empire State Building has made no money at all for its owners.

Moreover, every time the tallest building is announced, the world moves into recession, says Nield who's been following this trend and traces it back more than a century.

Nield argues further that early obsolescence is built into the towers constructed today. Unlike the great palaces of Venice, which are used over and over again, most of today’s towers are unusable after 25 years.

Some 12,000 foreign labourers built this latest tasteless Dubai eyesore. Dubai is notorious for keeping its construction workers in semi-slave conditions.

Read more articles tagged with: architecture, consumerism, capitalism.

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