by G. Fernández - theartwolf.com
Federico García Lorca said that there is nothing more poetic and terrible as the battle between a skyscraper and the sky. In fact, this architectonical typology, in addition to its logical functionality as being the maximum possible occupation of a surface, has an exceptional and immediate symbolism. There is no better way - or at least more effective- to publicize a new metropolis than building a remarkable skyscraper, and the cases of Honk Kong, Kuala Lumpur, and more recently Dubai or Astana, are a clear evidence of it.

After years of doubts about the development of the skyscraper as the paradigmatic typology of the contemporary metropolis, it has recently resurged with some projects that, moving between the rationality and the utopia, have put the skyscraper back to the first plane of the architectonic scene.

"GO HIGH, GO EAST"

Since the late 70s, the skyscraper's leadership was transferred from the United States to the emergent Far East, being specially notable the example of Hong Kong, where the space shortage demanded to find solutions capable to solve the enormous demand of commercial surface. Buildings as the famous Chinese Bank of designed by I.M. Pei (1990) or the Central Plaza (1992) helped to create Hong Kong 's spectacular skyline. The International Finance Centre (IFC), designed by Cesar Pelli, is, with its 407 meters in height, the current Hong Kong 's top.

At the present time, the two tallest buildings in the world are in the Far East, but not in Hong Kong . The beautiful Taipei 101 , designed by C. Y. Lee, with its 509 meters , have surpassed Kuala Lumpur 's Petronas Towers , that held, since 1998, the appraised title with their 452 meters of height. A Taiwan 's national pride, Taipei 101 includes impressive technological advances as 60 elevators capable to surpass 60 km/h or a tuned mass damper that protects to the buildings against earthquakes.

THE AMERICAN RECOVERY

When in 1998 the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur were completed, the United States lost the privilege of hosting the tallest building in the world, and it didn't look as though the situation was going to change. The 9/11 attacks that caused in the collapse of the World Trade Center, added to the rumours of terrorist attacks against other skyscrapers, like the Sears Tower or the John Hancock Centre, seemed to be the definitive coup de grace .

However, in a strange sample of patriotic pride so typical of the American people, the tragic attacks accelerated the renaissance of the American skyscraper that was outlined years before with the projects financed by Donald Trump in New York and Chicago. The most evident sample is the project that will replace the World Trade Centre in New York, the Freedom Tower , standing at a symbolic height of 1776 feet (540 meters) in commemoration of the American Independence.

But the most ambitious skyscraper projected for North America is the Chicago Spire , designed by Santiago Calatrava for the city of Chicago that will begin to be constructed in the early 2007, scheduled to be completed in 2010 . Inspired in a Calatrava's smaller skyscraper (the Turning torso in Mälmo , Sweden ), the building, with its 610 meters of height to the antenna, will continue the rich skyscrapers tradition of the city of Chicago .

THE PETRODOLLARS COLOSSUSES

But it will not be America , not even the Far East , the home of the tallest building of the next decades. The architecture-spectacle world has, since September 2004, an eye permanently put in Dubai , where, financed with the powerful petrodollars, the colossal Burj Dubai is being constructed.

Projected by architect Adrian Smith from the Skidmore, Owings and Merrill office, the Burj Dubai will be a colossus with Islamic reminiscences whose final height is still a mystery. Initially suggested to be 808 meters , a recent article Persian Gulf Extrusions, states a final height of 940 metres . The construction of the skyscraper has caused some controversy, due to press reports informing about the poor working conditions of the workers .

At the present time, another skyscraper of at least 700 meters of height, the Al Burj, is being projected in the Dubai 's outskirts. Also, the future project to Madinat al-Hareer in Kuwait includes a formidable tower said to be 1001 meters tall.

THE BIONIC UTOPIA

Apart from Frank Lloyd Wright's impossible One Mile Tower , the most spectacular and utopian skyscraper ever conceived is the so-called Bionic Tower , a spectacular project by Spanish architects Eloy Celaya, Mª Rosa Cervera and Javier Gómez Pioz for the Hong Kong bay, although exportable to any other coastal city willing to pay the $15 billion that would cost the building that would become the greater wonder of the contemporary world.

More than a skyscraper, the bionic Tower is a "vertical city", in which the residential units are distributed in 10 great levels. The circular footprints follow a vegetal model and include a massive central nucleus - destined to the vertical communications, with 368 elevators- surrounded by the residential and relax areas.

The project would be constructed in a 1 kilometre diameter artificial island, although the main tower would only occupy a surface area of 133 x 100 meters at base. With its height of 1200 meters and a capacity for 100.000 inhabitants, the Bionic Tower would suppose a colossal step in the ancestral human ambition to reach the sky.