By Nathalie Olah
VICE - May 15 2014
At the end of last month, construction began on the world’s newest
tallest building. This 3,281-foot-high spike rising out of the
relatively modest plains of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, will be almost twice
as tall as the Freedom Tower and reach 590 feet higher than the world’s
current tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
The Kingdom Tower—an absurdly vague name, but one that at least seems
justified for a building this enormous—is a statement of national pride,
an opportunity for Saudi Arabia and its Prince Alwaleed bin Talal (one
of the richest men
in the Middle East, and the project’s creator) to assert their presence
on the world stage. It’s also the zenith in the long line of
sci-fi-inspired buildings and rapid transit systems that have come to
define Gulf architecture over the past 20 years.
It’s not exactly surprising that cities throughout the Middle East look
like they’ve been inspired by a less-dystopian version of the Blade Runner universe. In 2005, the film’s “futurist designer” Syd Mead visited the region
and met with Bahraini royal Sheik Abdullah Hamad Khalifa to discuss
building projects. And despite all its patriotic function, the Kingdom
Tower is itself a work of American creation. Designed by Chicago firm
Smith Gill, it’s loosely based on plans for an architectural pipe-dream
of the seminal Frank Lloyd Wright: a one-mile-high tower called the
Illinois. Unfortunately, planners at the site in Saudi Arabia deemed the
original height too tall for the relatively unstable terrain of the Red
Sea Coast.
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