In the first year of Covid history, 26 new buildings above three hundred meters appeared on the planet - according to statistics, this is the most productive year for high-rises. It is interesting to note that in parallel the number of buildings with a height of two hundred meters decreased - that is, the average skyscraper has grown considerably.
We offer you a look at the top 3 tallest buildings commissioned in 2019.
Tianjin CTF by SOM
This 530-meter business center in the major port of Northeast China, Tianjin, has grown in a matter of years – and now it is, along with its sister-spike CTF Finance Centre, the seventh tallest skyscraper on the planet. It is located in the business districts of the old buildings and this resembles the Moscow City - there are also several "glass" dominate the old quarters.
The design is very non-standard, made in the form of a floral pestle and developed by SOM - one of the leading North American bureaus of architecture and design. Initially, it was planned to provide the building with bent glass, but the developer did not dare to coordinate such an experiment, so they limited themselves to planar. In total, there are more than 11 thousand, they have different sizes and shapes - more than 480 options in total.
Among the records is also the first place in the ratio of height and number of storeys: 96 levels visible from the outside are supplemented by 4 underground, and the average distance between the intermediate floors is more than five meters.
Lakhta Center
The second line is occupied by the St. Petersburg Lakhta Center, it was also commissioned in 2019. Initially, the project was to be implemented in the historical center of the northern capital, which caused powerful protests. A coalition of the Yabloko party, local environmentalists, human rights activists, musicians and cultural figures called "For the Living Heart of St. Petersburg" managed to defend the historical appearance.
The tower was exiled to the outskirts, closer to the sea. On cloudy days, Lakhta is not even visible from Vasilievsky Island, and on sunny and sunny days it rises with a sparkling steel needle.
In December 2018, not yet transferred to the customer - in his role was Gazprom - the skyscraper acted as a New Year's decoration: the green lighting lit at the facility was designed to symbolize the Christmas tree, the highest in the world.
On account of this building a number of records:
- The northernmost skyscraper on the planet
- Included in the top 10 most environmentally friendly buildings in the world
- The most expensive commercial project in Russia.
Despite the cut ribbon and the launched lease of offices, the construction is still ongoing - landscaping, the construction of a couple of functional and administrative buildings and numerous transport and logistics interchanges will be completed by mid-2022. If cormorants do not intervene (malicious birds, as you know, managed to damage the expensive roof of the Zenit Arena, so much so that a completely new structure required a full-scale reconstruction).
Jamaa Al-Jazair
Africa was also ennobled by a high-rise structure - the longest on the continent. We are talking about the minaret of the Jamaat al-Jazeer mosque - its "growth" is a little more than 266 meters. And the temple complex itself in terms of dimensions now occupies the third line in the world.
This religious building initially caused a lot of misinterpretations and disputes. In addition to the highest minaret, from which muezzins call to prayer faithful Muslims with the help of powerful columns with a total capacity of 9600 watts, the complex includes a school, a library complex, an Islamic museum and a madrasah.
Placing the building on the coast of the Bay, the architects on the one hand elegantly inscribed the structure in the landscape, and on the other - subjected it to a serious test in the form of convection due to the African heat, alternating with the sea winds.
The project was carried out by the Germans, but the construction was carried out by Chinese contractors.
The mosque was deliberately built right in the middle of neighborhoods inhabited by a poor and conservative population, prone to manifestations of fundamentalism and often, alas, educating Islamic radicals. The authorities believe that such a significant shrine in combination with infrastructure will allow to pull the propaganda youth out of the underground.
