Mine is bigger than yours

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Last year I visited the World Financial Centre in Shanghai. One hundred storeys high and, for about five minutes, it was the tallest building in the world. By now it’s probably been surpassed by two or three other buildings in Dubai alone.

The World Financial Centre, anecdotally called “the bottle opener” because of its distinctive cut out shape between the 94th and 100th floors, is a very elegant shape on the Shanghai skyline.

And I’m sure it provides lots of valuable office space for young men and women to make money for financial corporations by gambling on the rising or falling value of currencies.
But I’m sure that it would have been just as efficient, possibly more so, if it was half as high and twice as wide. Or if it had been designed as two smaller towers.

I suspect that it was decided by whoever developed the site that there was value in being the tallest, however brief that reign might have been. That much over-used architectural term “iconic” was no doubt lurking around during the early design meetings as well.

The shape of the cut-out at the top had an interesting gestation. The first design had a round cut-out, with the idea that it might contain a giant wind turbine — probably one that would cost $10 million and generate about 1 watt of electric power.

But it still would have been environmentally friendly wouldn’t it? Just don’t look too closely at the economics.
The developers finally decided that a round shape was not a good idea. One reason given was that a round shape looked too much like the Japanese flag. Not that the “Japanese” thing was an issue — it just wasn’t Chinese enough.

After trying a range of shapes they finally decided on a slightly tapering rectangle. This then allowed them (these damned architects again!) to insert a “Skywalk” slung underneath the 100th floor, complete with glass sides and a glass floor.

A completely useless appendage, other than being able to attract a few tourists into the building.
This was hardly a great business generator, as the only things in the gift shop were the usual cheap tourist geegaws. The only difference here was that they were all shaped like the tower — even the bottle openers.

Why do we do it? Why do we persist in building the tallest, or the most grotesquely shaped, or the biggest, or the most outrageous?
I’ve seen a building in Macao that was designed to look like a giant lotus flower. I understand there is even a new High Court in Wellington that is designed to look like an egg. No reason, it just seemed a clever thing to do.

Some people blame the computer, especially the latest gimmick called Building Information Modelling, or BIM.
But Geary, the designer of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, designed that building well before such smart software was available. He also used cardboard models to illustrate his designs, not clever digital images. So you can’t blame the computer.

I remember the British architect Will Allsop — a man who once designed (and even sold the design for) a block of apartments based on Marge Simpson’s hair — saying that he used to put his most outlandish designs in the window of his offices.
This was done just to peeve off Sir Norman Foster who walked past each day on the way to his own offices.

Is it a bloke thing? Got to have the biggest — wallet, car, house, whatever — or is it something else? The Guggenheim works for Bilbao. And the Sydney Opera House (which looks pretty tame now) cost $100 million to build and now attracts, both directly and indirectly, at least a billion dollars to the Aussie tourist economy every year.

But neither of these examples is tall. The only ones that are — the Eiffel Tower (meant to be only temporary) and the Empire State Building — are much more elegant examples from a bygone age.

Today, big, tall and brash is the only way to go.

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