Design
Can a Skyscraper Soar Above the Clouds?
Fact-checking an awesome rendering of Jeddah Tower, soon to be the tallest building in the world.
It looks like something from Star Wars, a single shining cloud-city pinnacle rising high through the stratosphere of a great gas giant. But it’s not a skyscraper planned for a galaxy far, far away. This one’s going up in Saudi Arabia.
Construction is underway on Jeddah Tower, formerly known as Kingdom Tower. When it is finished, it will be the tallest skyscraper in the world. It’s the work of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill, the Chicago-based architecture firm that has the height game in a headlock. Their work includes the Burj Khalifa, the current tallest building in the world. (Plans for a future skyscraper in Basra in Iraq could knock AS+GG off the pedestal one day, however.)