THE world’s first tower over a kilometre high finally has a completion date after a $1.2billion splurge and a string of delays.
Jeddah Tower, soon to be the world’s tallest building, is rapidly rising into the Saudi Arabian sky as construction steams ahead.
Jeddah Tower will be the tallest man-made structure ever at over one kilometre high[/caption]
Jeddah Tower is part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 prjoect[/caption]
And now its developers have announced they expect it to be completed by the end of the decade in time for Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 national re-brand.
This is an all-encompassing scheme to re-orientate the Gulf state’s economy, culture and society.
The tower has long been touted as the next Burj Khalifa – the world’s current tallest building.
But the tower has been beset by problems, with work grinding to a halt when it was only a third built.
The project was halted by scandal, after key figures connected to it were arrested in 2017, and then the Covid pandemic threw another spanner in the works.
But after seven years of inaction a ceremony last year kicked things off again.
So far, 63 of the planned 157 stories have been layered onto the building.
When fully erected, the tip of the tower will stand a staggering 3,280ft above the ground.
It will dwarf the Burj Khalifa by a margin of over 500ft, and will be more than three times the height of the Shard in London.
First unveiled in 2011, the original plans included a hotel, a shopping mall and the world’s highest observation deck.
The tower was designed by US architect Adrian Smith, who used the building’s “three-petal” footprint and tapered aerodynamic shape to overcome the massive technical challenges of building at such heights.
The architect’s Chicago-based practice, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill, has said the tower’s shape “evokes a bundle of leaves shooting up from the ground.”
Smith and Gill told Architectural Digest: “The design for Jeddah Tower is rooted in the symbolism of Saudi Arabia while looking toward the future by being technologically expressive.”
Saudi Arabia has encountered serious problems with a lot of the ambitious projects it is pursuing.
So far 63 of the 157 stories have been constructed[/caption]
The half-built tower already casts a long shadow across the land[/caption]
Work is currently underway to build Neom, a $1trillion megacity sprawling through the desert near its north-west Red Sea coast.
Last month, a reel of horrors including gang rapes and suicides were reported from the migrant-worker camps around the building site.
Employees reported incidents of rape, attempted murder and drug crimes riddling the hell holes housing construction workers.
There has also been a string of on-site deaths, with a British company recording “no evidence” of any safety procedures.
The crown jewel of Neom – a futuristic 106-mile long city called The Line – is also causing Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman a headache.
Last month he was forced to admit that The Line would not be finished for the next five decades.
Saudi Arabia’s mega projects
The Jeddah Tower is one of the many vast projects proposed in Saudi Arabia. These include:
- The Line: This 170 kilometre ‘landscraper’ aims to be a flagship part of Saudi Arabia’s Neom project in the country’s north west. The project was reported by Bloomberg to have been ‘scaled back’ in its medium term ambitions.
- Neom: This futuristic megacity project comes amid a big drive to diversify Saudi Arabia’s economy. It has faced controversy along the way, including from tribes in the area who have reportedly faced eviction to make way for the project.
- Jeddah Tower: Aiming to be the world’s tallest building, construction halted on this megatall skyscraper in 2018 following anti-corruption purges. It took around half a decade before construction resumed.
- The Clock Towers: Located in Islam’s holiest city of Mecca, the Clock Towers stand among the world’s top ten tallest buildings. However, its construction spared international outcry when a more than 200-year-old Ottoman fort was demolished in 2002 to make way for it.
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