Baku Risks the Curse of the Tallest Tower
Azerbaijan wants to build the world's largest tower -- the Azerbaijan Tower -- in Baiku. Clearly this giant building is meant to be an enduring tribute to the greatness of the current leadership of the country -- much like the pyramids of Egypt. But are the leaders of Azerbaijan aware of the Skyscraper Index, which correlates the building of the world's tallest tower with the subsequent national decline of the builder nation?
The ultimate longevity of the tower will depend upon who builds it and who maintains it. The utility of the tower depends upon how well Azerbaijan is able to maintain its oil & gas fields, and on how long the world prices of oil & gas can continue to remain in an inflated state.
The construction of the new tower -- along with other recent giant towers in UAE, KSA, China, etc -- should provide construction engineers with more experience and wisdom in the building of giant towers. Ultimately, at least some societies of humans are likely to pursue urbanisation to its logical conclusion -- the super-arcology, or one-building city. Efficient super-arcologies could free up most land for agricultural, recreational, and natural ecological uses, with a minimal "human impact" on natural habitats.
In fact, with sufficiently efficient arcologies, the concept of human overpopulation of the planet is laughable, for the foreseeable future.
The future isn't in Dubai or Saudi Arabia — it's going to be on a city of 41 artificial islands called the Khazar Islands that'll cost $100 billion to construct and be home to the world's tallest building. The Azerbaijan Tower, as the Avesta Group of Companies is calling it, will reach 1050 meters into the sky.
To put that height into perspective, that's 220 meters taller than the Pringles-can shaped Burj Khalifa and 50 meters taller than the Kingdom Tower (expected completion in 2016/2017). The tower will also be able to survive 9.0 magnitude earthquakes, in case you're the worrying type. _dvice
The construction of the new tower -- along with other recent giant towers in UAE, KSA, China, etc -- should provide construction engineers with more experience and wisdom in the building of giant towers. Ultimately, at least some societies of humans are likely to pursue urbanisation to its logical conclusion -- the super-arcology, or one-building city. Efficient super-arcologies could free up most land for agricultural, recreational, and natural ecological uses, with a minimal "human impact" on natural habitats.
In fact, with sufficiently efficient arcologies, the concept of human overpopulation of the planet is laughable, for the foreseeable future.
posted by al fin at 7:43 am
3 Comments:
These kind of towers are what Ayn Rand called monuments. Government leaders who feel compelled to build monuments are usually not the kind who create the conditions for sustainable economies.
Artificial islands.
This appears to be a sovereign state going into the seasteding business, whose main advantage is that it gets away from the costs imposed by sovereign states.
I guess, that building such a tall tower would be a sign of luxury and prosperity for Baku itself. However, the return of the investments would stay in the same circles which invested, i.e. the rich. The poor will remain poor. And there are so many Baku hotels there..
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