The Tallest Buildings in the World

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Burj Dubai, the world’s tallest skyscraper, is facing construction delays of at least a year after a leading contractor on the project went bankrupt, leaving the tower without any external walls.

Work that should have begun in the first quarter of last year won’t start until April at the earliest following the collapse of Switzerland-based Schmidlin Ltd Facade Technology, said George Efstathiou, a partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, which designed the tower in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Delays to the US$900 million, 160-storey skyscraper are a setback to Dubai’s plans to create a 202-hectare district featuring hotels, offices, apartments and the world’s biggest shopping mall as it seeks to become the Middle East’s No. 1 tourist hub. While the tower’s internal structures have already passed the 100th storey, the lack of a facade means work on fitting out the building can’t begin.

“It’s very unusual for a tower to be this tall without cladding,” Efstathiou said yesterday in an interview on the sidelines of the “Building Tall” construction conference in Dubai.

“The cladding is the enclosure of a building, so any interior work that needs dry conditions cannot be completed if it’s not in place.”

Wolfgang Rudolph, US general manager of Permasteelisa SpA’s Josef Gartner unit
“But we have a new contractor on board and they have a local partner and a scheme to get us back on track,” he said.

The facade for the Burj Dubai, comprising thousands of metal panels, will now be provided by Hong Kong-based Far East Aluminium Group, Efstathiou said.

“The cladding is the enclosure of a building, so any interior work that needs dry conditions cannot be completed if it’s not in place,” said Wolfgang Rudolph, US general manager of Permasteelisa SpA’s Josef Gartner unit, one of the world’s largest producers of so-called curtain walling.

Schmidlin Ltd Facade Technology, based in Aesch, Switzerland, filed for bankruptcy on Feb. 22 last year. The company said at the time that the high-risk and technologically-challenging nature of its work had led to spiraling costs, leaving it “massively in the red” since 2003.

JULY 28, 2005 — There may be a new tall kid on the block: Plans for a new Santiago Calatrava-designed tower for Chicago have been announced, and that means competition for New York City"s planned 1,776-foot Freedom Tower before construction has even begun on either project. The "Fordham Spire" (named for the development company)-which will reportedly rise to 2,000 feet, making it the tallest in the United States-is planned for the Windy City"s Near North Side, alongside Lake Michigan, and will house condominium units and a hotel.

While the stature rivalry between Fordham and Freedom may make waves stateside, the contest is beside the point on the global level: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill"s Burj Tower in Dubai-now under construction-is expected to reach 2,300 feet, and when complete, it will overtake C.Y. Lee and Partners" Taipei 101, which, at 1,667 feet, holds the current world"s tallest title (only last October, it beat out Cesar Pelli"s 1,483-foot Petronas Towers in Malaysia.)

If all goes according to plan, 115 stories of the Fordham Spire will be completed by 2009. It will be in good company; Chicago is already home to three of the world"s 15 tallest buildings: the Sears Tower, the John Hancock Center, and the Aon Center.…