Dear Mustakim Abdurrauf,The tallest building in Vancouver is the "Sheraton Wall Centre" at 1088 Burrard Street, with 48 floors and a height of 150 m. The first 27 floors of the building are a 4.5 star "Sheraton" hotel. The next 3 floors from 28-30 are the "Club Intrawest Resort", and the remaining 17 floors are residential condominiums. As shown on photo, the tallest building is the tall building just behind the white domed roof of the BC Place stadium. Second tallest building in Vancouver is the "Shaw Tower", hidden behind tall buildings at centre, because it was built on the lower elevation at Coal Harbour with 41 floors and 149 m high. And still under construction is the "Living Shangri-La" at 1120 West Georgia, with scheduled completion in 2008, with 62 storeys and a height of 197 m, will be the newest tallest building in Vancouver.
But these are insignificant if compared with other tallest building in the world. According to the "Council of Tall Building and Urban Habitat (CTBUH)", an international organization based in Chicago, USA, in their last "World Congress" meeting in 2006 determined that the tallest building in the world today are:
1."Taipei 101" in Taiwan. Completed in 2004, with 101 floors and a height of 508 m.
2."Petronas Tower" in Malaysia. Completed in 1998, with 88 floors and a height of 452 m.
3."Sears Tower" in Chicago. Completed in 1974, with 108 floors and a height of 442 m.
4."Jin Mao Tower" in Shanghai. Completed in 1998, with 88 floors and a height of 421 m.
5."Two International Finance Centre" in Hongkong. Completed in 2003, with 88 floors and 415 m.
The former "World Trade Centre (WTC)" in New York, with 110 floors and a height of 417 m, was used to be the tallest building in the world when it was completed in 1973. As we all know, that the WTC was destroyed by terrorist attack in September 11, 2001.
The "Jakarta Tower" which is still under construction with scheduled completion in 2009 with a height of 558 m will be the tallest building in the world. But hang in there for a minute, the "Center of India Tower" in Katangi, India with scheduled completion in 2008, with a height of 677 m, will surpass Jakarta Tower by a big margin. And not only that "Burj Dubai" tower in Dubai, United Arab Emirates with scheduled completion in 2009, with a height of 808 m, will surpass all of the above and will become the tallest building in the world. But the race for the tallest building in the world doesn't stop there and still more to come.
There are plans to build "Marjan Tower" in Bahrain with 200 floors and a staggering height of 1022 m, with a plan designed by a company from Denmark, and "Mubarak al-Kabir Tower" in Kuwait with a height of 1001 m. It sounds crazy and incredibly mind boggling. With the collapsed of WTC by terrorist attack I wonder whether it is really worth the risk to live and congregate large numbers of people in a single tall building. And also it will come down to huge amount of money available and the strain to the engineering technology to design such task. But they think they figured them all, so we have to just wait and see.
Meanwhile here in Vancouver, where real estate is so plentiful, there is no reason why they should build ever higher and higher.
Photo: "Sheraton Wall Centre", the tallest building in Vancouver. A view from my jogging route.
