Dear MEL Topic Readers,
A short history of the world's tallest buildings
Though there isn’t any clear standard definition, buildings taller than 150 meters are usually considered skyscrapers. And today, there are nearly 200 supertall skyscrapers whose heights exceed 300 meters around the world. Many of those are found in Asia, especially in China where there are over 1,400 skyscrapers and about 50 supertall skyscrapers are rising in nearly all urban downtowns.
The 150-year history of tall buildings began in 1870 when a then-skyscraping seven-story building appeared in New York. As land prices rose in urban cities, taller buildings gain economic advantage having been helped by technologies like steel frames and elevators. For the last few decades, mass dampers and swinging counterweights have made taller building more wind and earthquake-resistant. Also, the use of glass has been contributing to enhancing the economy, comfortability, and image of even taller buildings. Although each additional story generates more revenues, construction costs for higher floors become even more expensive. So, there is a certain economic limitation as to how tall a building should rise. However, people and societies have been historically building structures beyond economic reasons, such as pyramids and monuments, many of those are listed on the world heritage list. But nowadays, another factor should be considered to design a building. Environment. There seem to be three ”Es” that affect architecture designs, ego, economy, and environment.
Enjoy reading the article and watching the video to learn about what skyscrapers were, are and will be about for our society.
https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/history-of-the-skyscraper/index.html
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