Let’s get twisted. The Chicago Spire (formerly known as the Fordham Spire of Chicago) promises to be a spiraling plume of smoke, fossilized through the mediums of metal, glass, and light. A description of it does not transfer over to the conventional skyscrapers of the Windy City. The record-shattering Sears Tower will be undeniably dethroned from its singular glory on home turf. Swirling towers are a unique addition to the Chicago skyline. While the Sears Tower has a unique architecture as do many other skyscrapers in the Windy City, it does not revolve around a central axis as the Chicago Tower does.

Near the Persian Gulf, another Tower of Babel gestates. The architecture of Burj Dubai (Tower of Dubai) is based on three line segments of equal length emanating from a single point at 120 degree angles to each other. As the tower progresses, the lines shorten until they merge into a narrowing cone. However, unlike the rare and perhaps aesthetically ambitious geometry of the Chicago Spire, another feature of Burj Dubai strikes the viewer even more so than in the case of any structure in North America. Sheer height. There might as well not be anything else in Dubai. While the Chicago Spire will eventually share its glory with the infamous Sears Tower (construction has slowed down) and smatterings of other buildings at least half its height, Burj Dubai stands alone. Nothing in the region comes close. If trees grew trunks of stone and steel, the Burj Dubai would be an arrogant redwood surrounded by saplings.

An appropriate start to a discussion of skyscrapers has to consider Chicago and the elevator. In 1885, the Home Insurance Building broke with convention and rose 138 feet to become the first tall building in modern times. Enough emphasis cannot be placed upon this point: all previous buildings relied on stairs. Staircases can go straight, spiral curve, etc… A practical limit exists to how much you really expect people to climb up and down stairs for any task. How feasible is it, how much does it bite out of the economics of a corporate office? Elevators changed all this. Granted, the first elevators were death traps by today’s standards. As with all technology that grabs onto capitalism, elevator design improved tremendously. Today you are whisked from the basement to the observation tower of any of a dozen supertall structures with virtually no risk of elevator failure barring an extreme weight limit violation. Do not neglect that aside from eye candy skyscrapers are, appropriately enough, symbols of ambition and confidence in the future.

Like laughter, this type of confidence is contagious. What started out as an American phenomenon witnessed initially in Chicago and NYC is now visible in spades from far away in the outskirts of Dubai. Why does it matter? Once again, past the eye candy of modernity, there’s added significance given the culture and general history of Dubai and the surrounding region. For centuries past, up to the last 20-30 years or so, Arab-Islamic architecture and grandeur was expressed to itself and to others through their religious constructions. Consider Mecca and Medina. The grand mosques therein took tremendous resources, time, and dedication to construct and maintain. However, they serve no purpose other than to inspire onlookers to seek a spiritual path and the like. There is no “practical” (from a secular perspective) use in those buildings. Like all art, they are pretty, expensive, inspiring, but ultimately do not perform much function besides just being there.

Modern Dubai, with its famous palm-shaped artificial islands, sail-shaped Burj Al-Arab hotel, and various other incredible constructions have changed all that; or at least added on something significant. An emphasis on building big with not only the intent to inspire, spark pride, and perhaps compel one to seek higher truths, but also to make money. Yep, it’s that simple. One is hard-pressed to find a more concrete (pun fully intended) example of today’s investor mentality – sink fortunes into something awesome, and hope it pays off. Maybe it’s not called that, or thought of in that manner, but you can bet the royal family and many employed personnel would not sleep well at night if told that the bridges, hotels, residential towers, and of course, the Burj Dubai skyscraper were running at an extreme loss. Money matters and that is easier to see than ever before.

An obsession with height goes back thousands of years. Consider various ancient pyramids, the spires and soaring cathedrals of various churches and temples, and so on. Whatever it is, slapping it onto something that draws your eyes upwards imbues a magnificence that goes beyond pomp-and-circumstance pretensions. One may find irony in the Tower of Babel narrative. According to the story, people split into different tribes and warring factions scattered throughout the endless confines of the earth because they dared reach as high as they could see. Today, the construction of these supertall and futuristic behemoths like Dubai Tower and the Chicago Spire tends to bring people together if for no other reason than promise of financial opportunity. Whether in Taipei, Chicago, New York City, Tokyo, Dubai or Malaysia, locales with glass-and-metal projections piercing the sky tend to be bastions of a cosmopolitan atmosphere that is shared regardless of which specific skyscraper strains your neck with its majesty.

Oh sure, thank the investors, the builders, the workers, the architects, and the residents who pump revenue into this or that tower, and the culture that ultimately conceived it. Yes, but beneath all that I would like a moment of thanks dedicated to the elevator. It does not provide the power or structural support. Of glamor it has little. It is not a design feature, any more than the presence of walls is a “design feature”. A skyscraper building can be pitch-black, sturdy or frail, or ugly, or useless, or rotting. But it wouldn’t be at all were it not for the elevator’s pivotal service. Whatever the material, cultural, or decoration differences between the Chicago Spire and the Burj Dubai, their common underlying link and ultimate key to their prosperity is the aptly-named elevator.

>Written by d/visible contributor Ilya Sobolevskiy.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 13th, 2008 at 10:29 am and is filed under Culture, Architecture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.