North Korea’s Ryugyong Hotel is finally set to open after 23 years of construction and financial struggles. It is one of the world’s largest buildings as well as one of the most ridiculed, looking similar to a rocket ship.

Ryugyong has never been opened for business despite the original hype of the facility having 3,000 rooms, five restaurants, a bowling alley, a nightclub, and the government featured on the hotels official stamps. But having never being finished, it is only seen as a symbol for North Korea’s failures. The country has occasionally chosen to airbrush out the building in skyline photos.

Construction began in 1987 but was halted four years later when funding ran out. For years, a crane was a part of their skyline. “It was the hotel with the iconic crane,” said Simon Cockerell, an executive at Bejing-based Koryo Tours, which leads tourist groups to North Korea.

The intention is to finish the hotel is to show off economic strength even though the government relied on an outside investment from an Egyptian telecom company, Orascom, to complete the hotel.

Even after opening, Cockerell mentioned that a “common rumor in Pyongyang” was that many of the middle floors would still be left vacant, with the bottom for hotel rooms and the top for restaurants.

Originally, the concept of the building came from the need to compete with the South. As the South was preparing to host the 1988 Summer Olympics and was building many high-rises, the North decided to compete by building the Ryugyong which was going to be 200 feet higher than the highest building planned. At this point, with aid coming from the Soviet Union, the North could afford it. But when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, their funds and supply of raw materials ended abruptly.

Esquire magazine has called it “the worst building in the history of mankind.”

In 2008, Orascom agreed to begin renovations.

In 2009, the crane disappeared from the skyline.

The United Kingdom’s tallest building has topped out. The central core of the Shard Tower has reached completion at 244 meters. The total height of the tower, which is located in the Southwark area of London, will be 310 meters by the time it is finished in 2012.

Designed by world-renowned architect Renzo Piano, the London Bridge Tower or ‘Shard of Glass’ as it is known will be the tallest building in the UK as well as one of the tallest buildings on earth. Piano found inspiration for the tower from the masts of England’s legendary naval fleet. The mixed use tower will feature the Shangri-La Hotel in addition to over 586,509 square feet of office space, 62,129 square feet of residential space, and retail and restaurant space. The pinnacle of the tower will house a 8,159 square foot public viewing gallery designed for contemplation and the visual absorption of stunning views of London and surrounding English landscape.

The Shard is the tallest building in the UK (Computer graphic)

Lotte Group, Korea’s fifth largest conglomerate, is reaching for the sky. Construction began last month onLotte Super Tower, which is slated to be the second-tallest skyscraper in the world.

When completed, the 555-meter (1,281 feet) skyscraper in Jamsil, southern Seoul will be the tallest in Korea and second-tallest in the world to the Burj Khalifa’s 828 meters.

Computer Image of Lotte Super Tower

Construction of One World Trade Center reached its halfway point Thursday in lower Manhattan, according to reports.

Steel beams marked the 52nd floor, bringing the project that much closer to completion. When done, the skyscraper – which will be named Freedom Tower – will stand 104 floors tall. It has now hit the 600-foot mark.

An antenna, which will be added to the top of the tower, will extend it to 1,776 feet. The number 1776 will be historically symbolic, but will make the tower the tallest building in the United States.

The building is being built on the site where the twin towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001.

Plans are moving forward on Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the latest contender for the mantle of “world’s tallest building.”

Part of the 23-million-square-meter project known as Kingdom City, the tower is slotted for 1001 meters, 173 meters taller than Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the current record holder, which opened earlier this year.

Contractors are currently bidding for the right to build the skyscraper, according to the National. The project is being developed by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, one of the richest men in the world.

The project has been discussed for several years, but there has been a flurry of activity in recent years. Construction companies have been asked to submit bids three times this year, accounting for changes in the market and the tower’s design.

According to the National, bidders include Six Construct, a Belgian company that worked on the Burj Khalifa, and its Saudi partner, El Seif Engineering Contracting; Australia’s Multiplex Construction; and Saudi BinLadin Group, one of the biggest construction companies in the region.

If built to the current plan, Kingdom Tower would move past Burj Khalifa, but still faces competition for the “world’s tallest” title. The Burj Mubarak Al Kabir proposed for Kuwait is also planned for 1001 meters, and the Murjan Tower in Bahrain is slotted for 1022 meters, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.

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Ice skating in Chicago in January is nothing new. Doing it on the 94th floor of a downtown skyscraper certainly is.

Officials at the 100-story John Hancock Center said Thursday that they’re installing a rink that will allow visitors to skate at 1,000 feet up in the air.

About 20 people at a time will be able to skate on the 1,000-square foot rink. It will be open from January through March.

The rink actually won’t be made of ice. It will be made of a synthetic material that creates a hard, plastic floor with a slick silicone glaze.

It’s an attempt to attract more visitors to the building during a normally slow time of year. The 94th floor also has an open-air skywalk and a cafe.

The grand opening is scheduled for Jan. 1.

Begun in 1987, this 3,000-room 1,083-feet giant in downtown Pyongyang has sucked up nearly 2% of North Korea’s GDP over the past two decades — and yet it remains unopened, unoccupied, and as yet uncompleted.

Construction halted on the hotel — which, even in its incomplete state is the twenty-second largest skyscraper in the world — in 1992, following rumors that the North Korean government ran out of money for the project, or that the building was a victim of faulty engineering, or both. The results spell a massive embarrassment for the North Koreans, though it has inspired a few international devotees: A pair of German architects and self-described “custodians of the pyramid’s diverse manifestations” have set up Ryugyong.org, which they describe as an “experimental collaborative online architecture site” that contains 3-D models of the monster.

On October 21, Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates unveiled its slender, cone-shaped design for what will become one of Asia’s tallest buildings.

Lotte Super Tower 123

The Lotte Super Tower 123, so named because it will have 123 stories, will be built over a transportation hub near the Han River in the Jamsil shopping and entertainment section of Seoul, South Korea. The light-toned glass and metal-accented structure blends a modern aesthetic with historic Korean art forms such as ceramics, porcelain, and calligraphy. “The tower’s uninterrupted curvature and gentle tapered form is reflective of Korean artistry,” said KPF design principal James von Klemperer, FAIA. “The seam that runs from top to bottom of the structure gestures toward the old city center.”

The 1,831-foot-tall building, designed to achieve LEED Silver, will house the corporate headquarters for the Lotte Group, a 66-year-old, $50 billion a year Korean business conglomerate. In addition, the high-rise will serve as a mixed-use vertical community with five distinct zones: retail, office, residential, hotel, and observation. Construction is scheduled to finish in 2014. If completed as planned, it will be the world’s second tallest building behind Adrian Smith’s 2,684-foot-tall Burj Dubai in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

KPF is managing to stay busy during the recession with several large-scale commissions in South Korea. The New York-based practice developed the master plan for the Songdo International Business District, located on 1,500 acres of reclaimed land along Incheon’s waterfront, 40 miles west of Seoul. The $35 billion, 65,000-resident complex calls for offices, homes, shops, schools, and hotels—some of which KPF is designing. The firm’s 100-acre Songdo Central Park opened in August after three years of construction, and the 100-million-square-foot financial district developed by Gale International and Posco E&C, is expected to finish in 2015.

Skidmore, Owings and Merrill has broken ground on the $1.7 billion Digital Media City Landmark Tower in Seoul, South Korea. With a planned height of 2,100 feet, it is expected to be East Asia’s tallest tower by the time it’s completed in 2014.

“The Korean construction industry has built supertall buildings around the world—most notably Burj Dubai,” which was built by Samsung Corporation, says Mustafa Abadan, AIA, SOM’s design partner in charge. “This building has become an important symbol for them in terms of bringing that expertise to bear at home.”

The 725,000-square-foot skyscraper—a concrete structure clad in glass and aluminum—appears to swell slightly as it rises, evoking traditional Korean pottery that is slender at the base and flared at the top. Snaking façade details, to be made of either extruded aluminum or stainless steel, soften the building’s corners, which Abadan says breaks up wind forces on the structure while also creating different shading conditions.

The tower is topped by a crown that extends beyond the inhabitable floors, which is meant to accentuate the building’s height, capture light, and help power an array of wind turbines. With a host of other energy-producing and energy-saving features, such as natural ventilation from a powerful stack effect, photovoltaic panels that double as shading elements, and radiant cooling through beams, SOM estimates it will be able to reduce the building’s energy use by up to 65 percent, compared to more conventional towers.

The 133-story skyscraper will offer retail spaces, offices, a hotel, residential units, and an observation deck; it will be the centerpiece of a new business district for media companies. It is one of several new towers planned for Seoul, including the Lotte Super Tower 123 by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, and a Daniel Libeskind-desigend tower in the Yongsan International Business District.

Taiwan’s landmark skyscraper Taipei 101 is seeking to become the world’s tallest green building, its owner Taipei Financial Center Corporation (TFCC) announced yesterday. Harace Lin, chairman of TFCC, told a press conference that the company plans to apply for the Leadership in Energy and Environment

Design (LEED) certification for the building. To obtain that certification, Lin said, Taipei 101 will invest NT$60 million (US$1.8 million) over the next 18-month certification process to undergo hundreds of building modifications.

After the transformation is completed, Taipei 101 is estimated to save NT$20 million in energy costs each year. Lin said that Taipei 101 wants to be an international model of environmental protection and social responsibility.

“Taipei 101′s management team is expecting to make it an icon of green building industry in Taiwan and worldwide,” Lin said. “As the world’s tallest building, Taipei 101 aims to raise people’s awareness about our environment and be a pioneer of international green building certification for existing buildings, ” he added.

All the cranes have come down from Burj Dubai, according to a source close to the project. “The last crane was down by the third week of October,” the source told Emirates Business.

In September, an Emaar spokesperson had sent this newspaper a statement that the last of the cranes atop the Burj Dubai would be taken down in a few weeks. The cranes were originally supposed to come down by end of August.

The building, when completed, will meet all four criteria listed by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) – the body that classifies the world’s tallest structures.

CTBUH measures the height of buildings to the structural top, the highest occupied floor, the top of the roof and the tip of the spire, pinnacle, antenna, mast or flag pole.

Emaar said last month that the Burj Dubai tower has accomplished a world record for the highest installation of an aluminium and glass façade. Keeping the tower façade clean will be the next engineering challenge, it said. “To guarantee that every corner of Burj Dubai sparkles, 18 window-washing units are built into the tower,” said the statement.

Saudi business mogul Prince al-Waleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding company announced last week that it had signed an agreement for the construction of the world’s highest skyscraper.

According to the company’s statement, the skyscraper will be 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) high and will be built in the city of Jeddah off the Red Sea. Dubai’s Emaar Properties real estate company will be in charge of developing the project.

The project, named Kingdom Tower, will spread over 23 million square meters and will include commerce, housing and office areas. It will be built not far from Jeddah’s international airport.

The total cost of the project is estimated at some $27 billion, and the tallest tower in the world will be built in its center.

The tallest tower in the world today is Burj Dubai, which is 800 meters (2,625 feet) hight and is still being built by Emaar.

Stay tuned for some pictures to follow…..

The Sears Tower will be getting a ‘green’ upgrade that includes wind turbines, roof gardens and solar panels will join the pair of antennas atop the Sears Tower’s staggered rooftops, said building officials who announced Wednesday that the skyscraper would undergo a $350 million green renovation.

The 5-year project would reduce the tower’s electricity use by 80 percent and save 24 million gallons of water a year, building owners and architects said. Separately, a 50-story, 500-room privately funded luxury hotel with its own green components would be built next to the skyscraper in 3 1/2 to 5 years.

The country’s tallest building – the 412m Al Hamra Tower - is on track to open in 2010, construction officials have confirmed.

Designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merill, the tower is being built in Kuwait City by Turner Construction with Ahmadiah Contracting and Trading Company and will be the world’s largest sculpted tower once completed.

The supertall will become boring office space when it officially opens at the end of 2010, but it will also feature some cinemas and an IMAX screen.

Topping out is expected later this year.