Government
The Unlikely Home of the World's Next Tallest Skyscraper
The Bride of the Gulf will spring from the site of the Iraq War’s first major battle.
So many things about the Bride of the Gulf seem unlikely. It’s planned to be the world’s tallest skyscraper, soaring nearly three-quarters of a mile into the sky. It was designed not by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill—the architects behind the Burj Khalifa (currently the tallest) and the Kingdom Tower (soon to be the tallest)—but by AMBS Architects, an Iraqi firm.
And the Bride isn’t destined for the UAE or Saudi Arabia. The world title-holder will be built in Basra, Iraq. That might seem like a shock, too, since Basra was the site of the first major battle in 2003 during the Iraq War, and given that Iraq’s territorial coherence is under threat today.