“He is not dreaming,” the Chicago Tribune confirmed in 1956 after an 87-year-old Frank Lloyd Wright declared that he could build a milehigh skyscraper near the city’s Adler Planetarium. “If we are going to have centralization, why not quit fooling around and have it,” Wright, reclining at home in Spring Green, Wisconsin, told the reporter briskly.
Decades later, the mile race is still under way— and heating up: according to data released by the Council for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), 2015 was the highest year on record for tall buildings, with 106 new skyscrapers reaching completion. In just two years’ time, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture’s Jeddah Tower will soar more than a kilometer over Saudi Arabia.
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