Monday, February 08, 2010

Tall Tale


The top floors of the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, in Dubai, have been closed for electrical problems. The structure, named for the ruler of the emirate that bailed the builders out on a ten billion dollar loan payment, is 2717 feet (828 meters) high.

To put that number in perspective, if you took the Empire State Building and perched the Chrysler Building on top of it, the Burj Khalifa would still be taller, by more than four hundred feet.

Not that big, cubic-footage-wise, but it is a skyscraper ...

4 comments:

  1. Let's get real... That's more than a half mile tall! The Pentagon, at 4 or 5 stories, with 5 rings, is an ungawdly huge office building. Is there really enough demand for the space available there?

    I'm just getting tired of building bigger and bigger for the sake of proving we can do it. Hell, that place probably needs it's own power plant!

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  2. Got to keep up with the Joneses, you know.

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  3. Dubai has -- or had -- the money and the space, and the point isn't that it's necessary but exactly what you said -- because they can. And it gets the top spot and bragging rights.

    And to make for a nice target for somebody looking for big headlines.

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  4. I always think of Vader's super star destroyer when I see that building.

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